WorldPine-cone grenades and planet-baking carbon: the French fires 170 years in the making – a visual guide

Devastating wildfires across France this summer burned more land than ever recorded, displaced more people than at any time since the second world war and may have produced the country’s first firestorm thundercloud. The Gironde inferno was enabled by a 1857 decree that drained wetlands and created a vast maritime-pine monoculture, whose flammable debris was intensified by record heat, dry soils and climate change.

France wildfiresGirondeclimate changeforest management

TThe Guardian★★★★☆2026-08-23 11:00Original