2025 is a red-flag year for Italian forests, threatened by soaring fires and the accelerating climate crisis.
This is what emerges from data collected by Legambiente in its new report, presented today in Rome at the 8th Forest Forum. And Sardinia unfortunately remains among the most affected regions.
According to the study, this year – counting only the 57 most serious fires that devastated forested areas – the island has lost a total of 3,752 hectares, equivalent to about 5,000 football fields.
Sicily is in the worst position, with 49,064 hectares burned in 606 fires ; followed by Calabria, with 16,521 hectares in 559 events, Puglia with 8,009 hectares in 114 events, Campania with 6,129 hectares in 185 events, and Basilicata with 4,594 hectares in 62 events.
Looking at national data in Italy, cross-referencing Effis data from the Sentinel 2 satellite, which also takes into account fires under 30 hectares, from the beginning of the year to October 15, 94,070 hectares of land have burned, equivalent to 132,000 football fields, almost double the hectares that went up in smoke in 2024, or 50,525 hectares.
Legambiente, which has presented the government with 10 proposals to contain fires and land use, also emphasizes that the soaring fires are accompanied by an accelerating climate crisis, which is making forests more fragile and vulnerable, with increasingly intense extreme weather events, droughts, and a summer of 2025 that, according to Copernicus, was the fifth hottest recorded in Italy since 1950, marked by a temperature anomaly of +1.62°C.
(Unioneonline/lf)
