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Smoke rising above wildlife habitats, thousands of people evacuated and homes and livelihoods reduced to ashes – this is fast becoming the defining image of Britain and European summers.
Dr Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said: “Recent wildfires in south-western Europe produced large quantities of smoke, which caused significant degradation air quality across southern France and central regions of Spain.
“This was particularly notable in the cities of Bordeaux and Madrid, which were immediately downwind of the largest wildfires, in Gironde and Ávila respectively, with local measurements of PM2.5 indicating concentrations well above the air quality guidelines.”
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have been tracking wildfire smoke reaching Britain. They found that wildfires – including some thousands of miles away – account for about 10% of the UK’s particle pollution.
Damaris Tan, at the University of Edinburgh, created a computer simulation of global wildfires and agricultural burning. She said: “While wildfires may not impact air pollution in the UK as acutely as other countries, wildfires globally add to the UK population’s long-term health burden. The relative importance of this is likely to increase in the future.”
The study found that large fires anywhere in the northern hemisphere could increase UK air pollution. “Time lags on the scale of months are possible,” Tan said. “It depends on the location of the wildfires relative to the UK and the meteorology, but it took over three months for the effects of 2018 wildfires to become negligible to 2019 concentrations in the UK.”
Prof Mathew Heal, at the University of Edinburgh and part of the study team, said: “To meet legal targets for particle pollution, the UK may need to over-deliver on the emission reductions to allow for the potential of increased wildfires in the future.”
In 2019, almost half of the wildfire pollution in the UK originated from fires in Russia. Tan said: “The UK got significant contributions from both directions, on winds from the east and also from the west via circulation around the globe.”
In the northern hemisphere, Canadian fires dominated in 2023 and continued to have a significant impact over the following two years. Tan said: “The Canadian contribution to the UK in 2024 and 2025 was likely more than double that of most years prior to 2023.”
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Heal added: “The obvious main message would be to limit climate change, since this is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency, magnitude and intensity of extratropical wildfires. It may be beneficial to provide global incentives to limit unnecessary agricultural burning too.”
Wildfire smoke is only part of the problem. Chemicals released by the fires react with existing air pollution to produce even more harmful particles. In some cases, these reactions can double the amount of wildfire-derived particulate matter people breathe.
Dr Eiko Nemitz, an environmental physicist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and science lead on the study, said: “Reducing emissions from traffic, heating, industry and agriculture could limit the secondary component of particle pollution from wildfires. This is something … directly within UK policymakers’ control.”
