Key facts
- European authorities have enhanced wildfire response coordination and resources, but intelligence on intentional ignitions remains fragmented.
- Arson is largely handled at the national level, with varying laws and investigation practices across EU member states.
- Motivations for arson include pasture renewal, vandalism, retaliation, and land management conflicts.
- Spain and Portugal have introduced measures to prevent burned land from being rapidly converted to other uses.
- Climate change is increasing the severity of wildfires, making ignitions more likely to become disasters.
- The EU's Copernicus Earth observation programme monitors fires but cannot determine deliberate ignitions or motives.
European authorities are facing increasingly severe wildfire seasons, exacerbated by climate change. While the European Union has made significant strides in coordinating emergency responses through mechanisms like the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and the rescEU reserve, a critical intelligence gap persists regarding intentional ignitions, or arson.
Arson remains largely a national concern, with each EU member state maintaining its own criminal laws, investigation methods, and reporting practices. This fragmentation prevents the EU from developing a comprehensive understanding of who is starting deliberate fires, their motivations, and the patterns of such crimes. Motivations identified by the Joint Research Centre include pasture renewal, vandalism, retaliation, and conflicts over land management.
To combat potential economic incentives for arson, countries like Spain and Portugal have implemented restrictions preventing burned forest land from being rapidly converted to other uses, with Spain imposing a 30-year restriction and Portugal a 10-year one in many cases. However, researchers caution that land speculation is only one of several drivers for intentional fires.
The challenge of addressing arson is compounded by climate change, which creates conditions where fires spread more rapidly and become more destructive. The European Commission has noted that Europe is experiencing increasingly extreme wildfire events, with the cumulative burned area in the EU exceeding one million hectares in 2025, a record level.
While the EU's Copernicus Earth observation programme, through the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), provides advanced monitoring of fire location, spread, and damage, it cannot determine if an ignition was deliberate or identify the perpetrator or motive. This information still relies on national police investigations and forensic evidence. Furthermore, while Eurostat collects harmonized statistics for other crimes, a comparable EU-wide dataset on deliberate fire-setting is absent due to differing national classifications and reporting practices. Europol has identified environmental crime as a priority, but deliberate wildfire-setting remains an underdeveloped area of European criminal intelligence.