Greece recorded the smallest wildfire-burned area among five southern European countries this summer, according to Minister of State Akis Skertsos, who cited data from the European Copernicus/EFFIS monitoring system.
In a post on social media, Skertsos said that as of September 9, 2026, Greece had burned 335,230 stremmas of land, a figure 30.1% below the country's 20-year average. He said this made Greece both the country with the smallest absolute burned area and the only one of the five to fall below its historical average.
How Greece compares to other countries
According to the figures Skertsos published, Spain recorded 2,965,020 stremmas burned, 246.6% above its 20-year average. Italy recorded 1,075,970 stremmas, up 104.3%, while France recorded 969,310 stremmas, a rise of 599.5%. Portugal recorded 654,380 stremmas burned, which was 13.9% below its own average.
A stremma is a Greek unit of land area equal to roughly a quarter of an acre, commonly used in Greek statistics on agricultural and forest land.
Minister urges caution over the figures
Skertsos said there was no reason for celebration, noting that the fire season had not yet ended and that every forest fire brings losses that affect everyone. He said a proper assessment could not rest on triumphalism or on dismissing the achievement, but only on comparing Greece with its own past performance and with other Mediterranean countries.
He attributed the improvement to sustained investment in prevention, early detection and operational firefighting response in recent years through the "AIGIS" programme, which he said carries a budget of about 2 billion euros. He pointed to new aerial and ground firefighting resources, satellite data, drones, early detection technology, the anti-Nero forest clearing programme, and specially trained firefighters known as forest commandos as factors strengthening the country's ability to contain fires before they grow uncontrollable.
Third year of low pure forest loss
Skertsos said that for a third consecutive year, the loss of pure forest in Greece has remained at very low levels. He said that in 2025 Greece recorded the best performance in the Mediterranean for protecting pure forest, with just 3.9 stremmas lost per 100,000 stremmas, compared with 13.6 in Portugal.
He said this did not mean Greece had "won the fight against the climate crisis," describing it instead as an uneven battle that can never be won for good.
Lives lost this year
Skertsos said that behind every fire are people, property, forests and ecosystems. He said five firefighters and four civilians died in Greece this year, while the fire in Almeria, Spain, killed 13 people.
He pointed to the large fire in Porto Germeno as emblematic of a difficult fire season, saying it broke out of control and burned valuable forest land under very strong winds that severely limited the ability of aerial firefighting resources to operate safely during the first critical hours.
Investment in prevention
Skertsos concluded that investment in prevention, technology, personnel and civil protection resources can make a country more resilient to an increasingly difficult climate, though this does not mean there will not still be difficult fires that test even the most advanced civil protection and forest firefighting systems each year. He said this year's data so far show Greece in a better position both compared with its own historical average and compared with most southern European countries, calling it an achievement to build on in the future.
