As the island assesses the damage from the recent fires that devastated the countryside of Villacidro, Serramanna, and Samassi in southern Sardinia, with the community ready to rally together to "support businesses and families," the data released by Legambiente and contained in the report "Italy in Smoke" illustrates that the situation is certainly not improving at the national level. And that much work needs to be done, and done quickly, in terms of prevention.
IN ITALY - In Italy, between January 1st and July 18th, 653 fires burned across 30,988 hectares, equivalent to 43,400 football pitches . This resulted in an average of 3.3 fires per day and an average burned area of 47.5 hectares. According to the report, which analyzed and reprocessed EFFIS (European Forest Fire Information System) data, of the 30,988 hectares burned in the first seven months of 2025, 18,115 were natural areas (i.e., wooded areas); 12,733 were agricultural, 120 were artificial, and 7 were other types of land.
ON THE ISLAND - For Sardinia , with reference to the first six months of 2025 , the data speak of 1,500 hectares of burning land in 19 fires , values which, as the news unfortunately tells us, have significantly increased in the last ten days, which are not analyzed in the report. To give a 12-month picture, last year the island was third in Italy, after Sicily and Calabria, among the regions most affected by forest fires, with 5,524 hectares of surface area gone up in smoke , representing alone 11% of the burned surface in Italy . The province of Nuoro paid the highest price , with 8 km² of forested areas destroyed , equal to 10% of the national total. Among the most affected plant formations are evergreen broadleaf trees – holm oak forests and Mediterranean scrub – which accounted for 46% of the forests destroyed.
