(Reuters) – Extreme fires have swallowed up huge swathes of land, destroyed homes and threatened livelihoods across the world in the first half of 2022.
Below is a list of the bigger blazes – once relatively rare events that scientists say have become increasingly frequent and fierce, fuelled by heat waves, droughts and the growing menace of climate change.
ASIA
* A fire in South Korea’s eastern coastal county of Uljin consumed around 42,008 acres in early March, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory services.
AFRICA
* In Algeria, blazes killed about 36 people in August. Fires in the mountainous region of Al Taref ravaged around 14,010 acres of vegetation, according to APS news agency.
* In Morocco, several fires ripped through the provinces of Larache, Ouezzane, Tetouane and Taza, burning nearly 5,000 acres, displacing thousands of people and killing one person.
EUROPE
* In Croatian town of Zaton, a fire consumed nearly 4,942 acres of land, according to a report from EU’s emergency management service Copernicus.
* In a Czech national park on the German border, a fire burned about 5,650 acres in July, according to a GDACS report.
* In France, wildfires ravaged more than 148,000 acres of land across the country, mainly in the southwestern region of Gironde where tens of thousands of people had to evacuate.
* In Germany, a fire at an ammunitions dump in Berlin on Aug. 4 burned forested area almost the size of three football pitches.
* In Greece, a wildfire on the island of Lesbos near Turkey consumed around 4,200 acres in July, according to the European Space Agency. Fires also raged near Athens, on the island of Salamina, in the western Peloponnese, and in northern Greece.
* In Italy, a fire started on July 20 near Carso and spread across the border to Slovenia, burning over 5,000 acres by July 21. A fire in Tuscany destroyed 1,606 acres between July 19 and July 20.
* In Portugal, a wildfire in the central Covilha region burned more than 42,000 acres, including parts of the Serra da Estrela national park.
On July 17, blazes consumed 24,710-29,650 acres in the Murca municipality and killed two people.
Earlier in July, several wildfires broke out in Ourém municipality and burned over 7,410 acres, according to Copernicus.
* In Russia, two fires have raged across the Ryazan region – about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Moscow – since early August. Nearly 22,660 acres have been consumed, according to the Aerial Forest Protection Service.
The AFPS has reported about 70 large blazes across Russia this summer, with around 234,700 acres burned.
* In Spain, wildfires burned more than 617,760 acres as of Aug. 19 as they continue to rage across the country, according to Copernicus.
A blaze in Zaragoza province burned about 4,942 acres in July. In June, a fire in Zamora province scorched at least 49,420 acres while a wildfire in Malaga province ravaged 8,600 acres.
* In Turkey, a wildfire in the province of Mugla ravaged nearly 1,800 acres.
NORTH AMERICA
* In Canada, a blaze in British Columbia burned nearly 2,000 acres in July.
* In the United States, the so-called McKinney Fire in northern California near the Oregon border has charred 60,138 acres and killed four people, according to a report by InciWeb.
Oak Fire just west of California’s Yosemite National Park burned 19,244 acres as of Aug. 5.
On July 8, a fire broke out in Yosemite, home of some of the world’s largest and oldest giant sequoia trees. It consumed 4,886 acres by Aug. 14, according to a report by InciWeb.
On April 17, the Pipeline Fire in Arizona burned over 20,000 acres.
In New Mexico, the largest blaze was the merger of the Hermits Peak Fire and the Calf Canyon Fire in San Miguel and Santa Fe counties, which started on April 6 and April 19, respectively, and charred 341,735 acres as of Aug. 23, according to InciWeb.
In California, Colorado Fire started on Jan. 21, burning about 1,500 acres as per Jan. 22.
SOUTH AMERICA
* In Argentina, wildfires in the Corrientes province near Paraguay’s borders ravaged about 2,223,948 acres in February, displacing or killing wild animals such as capybaras and alligators.
NOTE: For this list, a fire is ranked “extreme” after burning 1,000 or more acres.
(Reporting by Dina Kartit; Editing by David Gregorio, Ed Osmond, Susan Fenton and Milla Nissi)
