The Wildfire Season Is Coming Early — And This Time It's Starting in March

Europe's wildfire season has begun weeks ahead of schedule. Scientists say 2026 could be the worst on record. Here is what the early warning signs actually mean.

Forest fire analysts track a metric called the Fire Weather Index — a composite measure that combines temperature, humidity, wind speed, and rainfall deficit to assess the risk of wildfire ignition and spread. In a normal year, the Fire Weather Index in the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, and northern Italy does not reach levels classified as 'Very High' before late May or early June. In the final week of March 2026, all three regions simultaneously crossed the Very High threshold for the first time in recorded history for this calendar period.

The early-season fire risk is directly connected to the extraordinary March heat event — a temperature anomaly of 12-14 degrees above historical average in parts of Spain and Portugal — but it is also connected to the precipitation deficit that preceded it. Winter 2025-26 was significantly drier than average across the entire western Mediterranean basin. Vegetation entered spring without the moisture loading that normally provides natural protection against ignition during the warm-season transition.

The combination of dry fuel and exceptional heat has created conditions that fire scientists describe as 'unprecedented for the season.' What typically takes until late June to develop — a landscape primed for catastrophic wildfire across enormous areas — has arrived in late March.

The practical implications are significant. European aerial firefighting resources — water-bombers, helicopters, tanker aircraft — are not typically mobilized or on standby in March. Crews that will spend July and August working 16-hour days are on their normal spring schedules. International agreements for sharing firefighting resources between countries are activated by crisis, not by early warning. And the fire suppression strategy that works in early-season conditions — when fires are smaller, slower-moving, and easier to contain — becomes progressively less effective as the season deepens and fire behaviour intensifies.

Fire authorities in Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy have all issued public warnings about the early elevated risk. What they have not yet activated are the emergency resource deployment protocols that late-summer crises trigger automatically. That gap between the data and the institutional response is itself a risk.