Climate change made heat and dryness that fueled Iberian wildfires 40 times more likely, study finds

MADRID (AP) — The extremely hot, dry and windy conditions, which fueled one of the IberianPeninsula's most destructive wildfire seasons in recorded history, were 40 times more likely due to climate change, according to a study released Thursday.

The analysis by World Weather Attribution, or WWA, said the weather conditions were about 30% more intense compared to the preindustrial era, when heavy reliance on fossil fuels began.

Hundreds of wildfires in the Iberian Peninsula broke out in July and August. They spread rapidly thanks to temperatures that pushed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and strong winds.

The fires in Spain and Portugal killed eight people, forced more than 35,000 evacuations and scorched more than 640,000 hectares (1.58 million acres) or roughly two-thirds of Europe’s total burned area this year.

Most blazes are now under control, officials say, as temperatures have dropped considerably.

“Hotter, drier and more flammable conditions are becoming more severe with climate change, and are giving rise to fires of unprecedented intensity,” said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College, London.

Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

WWA, a group of researchers that examines whether and to what extent extreme weather events are linked to climate change, focused on the conditions that allowed the Iberian wildfires to spread that fast, including during Spain's hottest ten-day period on record in August, according to the country's weather agency AEMET.

Without climate change, similar ten-day spells of hot, dry and windy conditions would be rare, expected once every 500 years, they found.

“This quick study is one more line of evidence showing how human-caused climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme heat and combined hot and dry fire weather conditions,” said Valérie Masson-Delmotte, a climate scientist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, who was not involved in the study.

WWA's analysis wasn't a full attribution study. Those seek to determine the influence of climate change, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, on a specific extreme weather event. This time, the researchers looked at weather observations without using climate models. But the results were consistent with existing research on wildfires in the region, the researchers said, and another study WWA recently published on this year's fires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, which found that climate change made fire-prone weather conditions there 10 times more likely.

“While fires are a characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, human-caused climate change increases the recurrence and severity of conditions favorable for intense fires, making fire control efforts much more challenging,” Masson-Delmotte said.

The researchers mentioned other factors that have contributed to the severity of the wildfires, including large population shifts that have taken place over decades in Spain and Portugal from the countryside to cities. The study said this has resulted in large areas of neglected overgrown farms and forests, which further fuel the fires.

Removing vegetation using machinery, encouraging grazing by sheep, horses and goats and using other methods, such as controlled burns, would reduce the risk during wildfire seasons, researchers said.

“From a human perspective, most of these rural areas have suffered massive abandonment since the 1970s, which has allowed fine fuels to accumulate to dangerous levels, a problem worsened by inadequate forestry management,” said Ricardo Trigo, a professor at the University of Lisbon's geophysics, geographical engineering and energy department.

On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez proposed a 10-point plan to better prepare the country for natural disasters made worse by climate change. It included coordinating with neighboring Portugal and France.

FILE - A firefighting plane drops water over a wildfire in Veiga das Meas, northwestern Spain, on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Lalo R. Villar, File)

File - A man stands as he battles a wildfire in Veiga das Meas, northwestern Spain, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Lalo R. Villar, File)

FILE - Firefighters battle a wildfire in Veiga das Meas, northwestern Spain, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Lalo R. Villar, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to use a congressional map favoring Republicans in this year's elections, despite a lower court's ruling that the redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against Black people.

The state's Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after a three-judge court refused to let the state use a map it adopted three years ago that has a majority Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts.

The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map that was put in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.

Attorney General Steve Marshall told the court that the state did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and should be allowed to hold elections this year under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges.

The appeal is the latest development in the fallout from last month's Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Donald Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.

The Alabama cases stretches back several years. The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.

After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.

In the meantime, voters cast ballots in Alabama’s May 19 primaries, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey set new special primaries for Aug. 11 in four congressional districts affected by the map switch.

Upon further review, the judicial panel said it was standing behind its initial finding that there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination, a holding that was independent of and unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.

The use of the court-ordered map led to the 2024 election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. State Republicans are seeking to use a map that would give the GOP an opportunity to reclaim the south Alabama seat.

The state is asking for Supreme Court action by Monday as it makes preparations for the special vote in August.

This story has been corrected to show the Alabama primaries were May 19, not May 11.

Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed to this report from Montgomery, Ala.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

FILE - Shomari Figures, who is running for Alabama's 2nd Congressional District, speaks during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

A statue titled the "Authority of Law" sits in front of the Supreme Court on Friday, May 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)