A Burning Summer: Europe’s New Forest Reality
July 2026 is once again proving that forest fires are no longer a rare phenomenon confined to the Mediterranean basin. In Spain and Portugal, areas comparable to entire cities have burned, while authorities in Greece are warning residents about toxic smoke drifting over the region. June 2026 went down as the hottest June ever recorded in Western Europe, and prolonged drought has gripped the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, and increasingly large parts of Eastern Europe. It is precisely this combination — record heat, parched vegetation, and strong winds — that is making today’s fire season longer and pushing it into areas considered safe just a decade ago.
For the One More Tree Foundation, this is not an abstract issue happening somewhere else. Polish forests, although they rarely make European headlines, are also increasingly exposed to long periods of drought and high temperatures that favor ignition. Understanding the mechanisms behind fire and forest recovery allows us to plant trees in ways that are resilient to a changing climate, rather than simply reacting to the next disaster. This article explains what happens to a forest ecosystem the moment fire strikes, how nature manages recovery, and what role people, organizations, and local communities can play in that process.
Fire in the Forest — A Natural Phenomenon That Has Spun Out of Control
The Natural Role of Fire in Forest Ecosystems
Contrary to popular belief, fire has been part of how many forest ecosystems function for thousands of years, particularly in Mediterranean, boreal, and continental climates. Natural, relatively small fires triggered by lightning strikes used to clear accumulated biomass from the forest floor, release minerals locked in dead organic matter, and create space for new generations of trees. Some species, such as black pine or eucalyptus, have even evolved fire-dependent mechanisms — their cones only open and release seeds under high temperatures. Scientists call such plants pyrophytes.
Climate Change as the Driving Factor Behind the Crisis
The problem today is not fire itself, but the scale, intensity, and frequency of fires that now exceed ecosystems’ capacity for natural recovery. A study published in March 2026 in the journal “Science” indicates that under a warming scenario limited to roughly 2 degrees Celsius, the annual area of forest destroyed in Europe could rise from around 180,000 hectares today to as much as 216,000 hectares per year by the end of the century. In the European Union alone, last year — a record-breaking one — saw over 1,800 major forest fires that released around 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, paradoxically fueling the very same climate crisis that caused them. This vicious cycle is one of the most serious challenges facing forest conservation today.
Among the most important factors increasing fire risk are:
- prolonged heatwaves and record-breaking summer temperatures,
- soil and atmospheric droughts that dry out leaf litter and undergrowth,
- changes in forest structure, including coniferous monocultures prone to rapid fire spread,
- growing urban pressure on forest and border areas (the so-called wildland-urban interface).
What Happens to a Forest the Moment Fire Strikes
Direct Effects on Soil and Vegetation
The high temperature of a fire literally transforms soil structure. Fire destroys the humus layer, kills the microorganisms responsible for breaking down organic matter, and can lead to so-called soil hydrophobicity — a phenomenon in which scorched earth stops absorbing water, increasing the risk of erosion and landslides once the fire has passed. Trees that survive the flames often die in the following weeks due to damage to their root systems and cambium, even if they look alive from the outside. The loss of the tree canopy also means the soil is suddenly exposed to sun and wind, altering the local microclimate for months to come.
Impact on Forest Wildlife
Animals respond to fire in different ways — some flee, some hide in burrows and rock crevices, and unfortunately a significant number, especially slow-moving species like amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates, die directly in the flames. Losses among pollinating insects can be especially severe, since they affect the condition of vegetation regenerating in subsequent years. At the same time, researchers note a paradox: some bird species, such as woodpeckers feeding on dead, charred wood full of insect larvae, can actually benefit from the short-lived abundance of food a burned forest provides.
Ecological Succession — How a Forest Rebuilds Step by Step
The First Months: Pioneer Species
The process by which life returns to burned land is called ecological succession, and it follows recognizable stages. Within the first year after a fire, pioneer organisms — mosses, lichens, and grasses — appear on the scorched ground, coping with poor, often heavily acidified post-fire soils. These undemanding plants gradually rebuild the soil’s structure and fertility, preparing the ground for more demanding species. They are also the first to bind the topsoil, limiting erosion caused by rain and wind.
Subsequent Stages of Ecosystem Recovery
Over time, we observe a predictable sequence of changes in vegetation composition:
- Years 1–3: dominance of grasses, herbs, and pioneer shrubs, with the first self-seeding of light-loving trees such as birch or pine.
- Years 5–20: young trees form a closed canopy, and the first shade-tolerant species appear in the understory.
- Several decades: the forest develops a multi-layered structure, and mycorrhizal fungi and insects return in diversity.
- 50–200 years: the ecosystem approaches its pre-fire state, though it rarely recreates it entirely.
It’s worth noting that soil microorganisms play a crucial, if invisible, role throughout this process — they are the ones rebuilding the fungal networks connecting tree roots, a topic we explore further in our other educational materials available in the ecological workshops section of our website.
Biodiversity After a Fire: Losses, But Also Unexpected Gains
When Fire Creates New Habitats
Although fire is associated almost exclusively with destruction, ecologists have long pointed to its role in increasing habitat diversity at the landscape level. Open, sun-exposed spaces created after a fire favor plant and insect species that couldn’t survive in the shade of a dense, mature stand. Dead, charred trunks become home to specific saproxylic beetles and bird species that nest in tree cavities. In this way, a mosaic of forests of different ages and at different stages of regeneration — rather than a uniform, “ideal” stand — turns out to be crucial for the overall species richness of a region.
When Regeneration Fails
Problems arise when fires become too frequent, too intense, or cover too large an area for natural succession to proceed undisturbed. In Mediterranean regions, a phenomenon known as post-fire desertification is already being observed — when a subsequent fire destroys regenerating vegetation before it has fully taken root, and the soil loses its ability to retain water to such an extent that the forest cannot regrow without human intervention. This is precisely why scientists and non-governmental organizations increasingly talk not about “extinguishing fires,” but about managing fire risk over a timescale of decades.
The Human Role: Rebuilding Forests Fit for the Future
Species Selection and Spatial Planning
Rebuilding a forest after a fire involves far more than planting new saplings where burned trees once stood. More and more foresters and environmental organizations are turning to species diversity and mixed deciduous-coniferous stands, which are less prone to rapid fire spread than vast pine monocultures. It is also important to leave natural gaps in the tree stand — so-called firebreaks — and to limit afforestation directly adjacent to buildings in areas at high risk of drought.
Prevention Matters More Than Intervention
Alongside tree planting itself, growing attention is being paid to prevention: removing excess dry biomass from the forest floor, satellite monitoring of ignition hotspots, and educating residents of rural and suburban areas on the safe use of fire. The One More Tree Foundation has spent years running educational programs and tree-planting initiatives with long-term ecosystem resilience in mind, not merely counting the number of saplings planted — because the true value of a forest only reveals itself after decades of growth.
What You Can Do Today
Everyday Conscious Choices
You don’t need to live in a fire-prone region to have a real impact on forests’ resilience to climate change. Reducing your own carbon footprint, supporting responsible forest management, and choosing products made from certified wood are concrete steps anyone can take without much effort. It’s also worth getting involved in local initiatives related to protecting urban greenery, since well-planned green areas in cities reduce the risk of fires spreading into suburban areas and simultaneously ease the effects of heatwaves.
Join the One More Tree Foundation
If you’d like to turn knowledge into concrete action, we invite you to plant trees with us as part of our initiatives — every new tree, well-suited to local habitat conditions, is a contribution to more resilient, more diverse forests of the future. Companies and teams looking to engage employees in tangible environmental action can also take part in our employee volunteering program, which combines team building with a real impact on the landscape.
Summary: A Forest That Learns to Survive
Forest fires in the age of climate change are a phenomenon that will accompany us for decades to come, no matter where we live. Understanding the mechanisms of ecological succession, the role of pioneer species, and the importance of biodiversity allows us to see forest recovery not as a one-time action, but as a long-term process requiring patience, knowledge, and consistency. The better we understand nature’s own mechanisms of regeneration, the more effectively we can support them — by planting the right species, in the right places, at the right time. That philosophy lies behind every tree we plant together with our partners and volunteers.
