German Forest Fire Trends: More Area Burned

Firefighters dampening down a burnt forest after a wildfire
Firefighters dampen down after the Treuenbrietzen forest fire, Brandenburg, June 2022. Photo: Leonhard Lenz via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Burned area risingUpdated 6 October 2026

Trend summary

  • Germany does not have more forest fires than it did in the 1990s, but since the drought years that began in 2018 the fires that do start are bigger, the season is longer, and old military land keeps producing fires that crews cannot safely enter.
  • There were 1,175 forest fires burning 2,626 hectares in 2025, more than double the number of 2024 and about three times the 1991–2024 average area of 844 hectares (BLE forest fire statistics).
  • One fire did most of the damage: the Gohrischheide fire in Saxony burned 1,867 hectares in July 2025 and, according to prosecutors, was started by old munitions that ignited in the heat.
  • In August 2026 the Hürtgenwald fire in the Eifel burned or damaged about 300 to 400 hectares, the largest forest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia’s records; official figures for 2026 as a whole are not due until mid-2027.
1,175forest fires, Germany, 2025 (563 in 2024)
2,626 haforest area burned, Germany, 2025 (fourth-highest since 1991)
1,867 haburned in one fire, Gohrischheide, Saxony, July 2025
300–400 haburned or damaged, Hürtgenwald, North Rhine-Westphalia, August 2026 (provisional)

What the numbers show

The national record is the annual Waldbrandstatistik (forest fire statistics), compiled from the federal states’ reports by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE). Its release for 2025, published on 30 June 2026, counts 1,175 forest fires covering 26.3 square kilometres, an area the size of the North Sea island of Norderney. The number of fires was close to the 1991–2024 average of 1,139, but the burned area was about three times the average. Only 1992 (4,908 ha), 2022 (3,058 ha) and 2019 (2,711 ha) were worse. The long series published by the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) shows the shift: in quiet years such as 2014 Germany recorded 429 fires and 120 hectares, while the drought summers of 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2025 each burned more than 2,300 hectares. Wet years still bring sharp falls, as in 2024 (563 fires, 334 hectares).

The fires are concentrated in the north-east, the eastern part of north-west Germany and the Upper Rhine plain. Brandenburg, with sandy soils, pine forests and munition-contaminated former training grounds, again had the most fires in 2025 (317), but Saxony had the largest burned area, 1,894 hectares, almost two-thirds of the national total, because of the Gohrischheide fire. The 2025 fire season began in March and only eased in September, part of what the Umweltbundesamt describes as a longer season reaching into late summer and autumn. Figures for 2026 are not yet published; state and news reports so far point to a severe year in the west and north as well as the east.

What is driving it

Weather sets the conditions. The German Weather Service (DWD) publishes a daily Waldbrandgefahrenindex (forest fire danger index) on a five-level scale, and in July 2026 it showed the top level along the Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg border (Tagesschau). The DWD’s summer 2026 review describes one of the warmest summers on record, with dried-out soils, record low rivers and numerous forest and vegetation fires. People supply the spark: where a cause could be found, BLE data show human action as the main cause, and the BLE estimates that about one fire in five in 2025 was probably set deliberately. Lightning caused only 2%, and no cause was found for about 46%.

Germany also has a problem most countries do not: old munitions in the ground. Brandenburg estimates that about 585,000 hectares of the state are suspected of containing explosive remnants of war, according to Tagesschau. On such land, firefighters must stay on the tracks and let fires burn out against firebreaks, as at Lübtheen in 2019, Jüterbog in 2023 and 2026, and the Gohrischheide in 2025. Forest owners and state forestry services have increased spending on fire prevention since 2018, and Brandenburg now watches its forests with more than 100 automatic smoke-detection cameras.

Recent cases

  • 31 August 2026: the DWD’s summer review records two large fires in Müritz National Park in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at the end of June and in July, which together burned more than 400 hectares (DWD, in German).
  • 14–18 August 2026: a fire in the Hürtgenwald in the Eifel forces the evacuation of about 2,000 people from the village of Gey. The state government calls it probably the largest forest fire in North Rhine-Westphalia’s history, with about 300 to 400 hectares burned or damaged (Land NRW, in German).
  • 4 May 2026: a fire on a munition-contaminated former military training ground near Jüterbog in Brandenburg burns 152 hectares before stopping at firebreaks; crews could not attack it directly because of the munitions in the ground (Tagesschau, in German).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from German federal and state government agencies, regulators, accident investigators and national statistics; a few news reports are included where they are the clearest public record of an event. Many official releases are published only in German; for those we give an English translation of the title and mark the link (in German). Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

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View 20 years of major German wildfire press releases (2007–2026)50 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

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2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

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Some early years list fewer than five items. Many older German government releases are no longer online at their original addresses, and we only list items we could find and check.

Photo list

Blackened tree trunks in a fire-damaged pine forest
Fire-damaged forest at Bötzow, Brandenburg, July 2021. Photo: Leonhard Lenz via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Fire engines parked at a staging area near a forest fire
File photo: fire engines gathered at Frohnsdorf during the Treuenbrietzen forest fire, June 2022. Photo: Leonhard Lenz via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. German statistics are often published separately by each federal state (Land) and some only in German, so we say which area and period each figure covers and translate titles. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.