Weather that drove Iberian wildfires is 40 times more likely due to climate change, report says

By Charlie Devereux

MADRID (Reuters) -The hot, dry and windy conditions this summer that fueled the worst wildfires in Spain for at least three decades are 40 times more likely to recur due to human-caused climate change, according to an analysis by World Weather Attribution.

World Weather Attribution is an international collaboration that has conducted over 110 studies on the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events.

Weather data analysed by a group of 13 scientists found that the extreme conditions that drove last month's fires in the northwest of the Iberian peninsula, including Portugal, were likely to recur every 15 years due to today's climate.

The climate is 1.3 degrees Celsius (34.3 Fahrenheit) warmer compared to pre-industrial levels when such events would be expected to occur every 500 years.

Forest fires ravaged more than 1 million hectares of land in the European Union this summer, with Spain and Portugal accounting for about two-thirds of that total.

The fires killed at least eight people, forced the evacuation of thousands and shut railway and motorway traffic in several areas. They coincided with a 16-day heatwave that was the most intense since records began.

"Extreme weather is becoming more frequent, but deaths and damages are preventable," said Theodore Keeping, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy Imperial College London.

"For wildfires, there's an urgent need to control vegetation in rural areas, particularly land that has been abandoned by farmers and shepherds," he added. "Ultimately, though, the world needs to stop burning oil, gas and coal."

Heatwaves of similar intensity will occur every 13 years compared to every 2,500 years if there was no man-made climate change, the study found.

The scientists analysed the 'Daily Severity Rating' (DSR), a metric that considers temperature, humidity, wind speed and rain to estimate the potential intensity of a wildfire and how difficult it will be to extinguish.

The study focused on the 10 most intense days of the DSR each year and the 10 hottest days each summer in northwestern Spain and northern Portugal.

(Reporting by Charlie Devereux, editing by Andrei Khalip and Gareth Jones)