It was the UK’s hottest ever summer and it seems that wildfire has become a major threat to countries across Europe as climate change creates a perilously new normal.

Europe accounted for 5% of the €173 billion in global wildfire losses from 2016 to 2025, and empirical experience highlights that wildfire has not yet been a major insured peril for Europe. But, as recent wildfire events demonstrate, the conditions that shape the risk are changing, and so the identification and management of risk accumulation across multiple lines of business is becoming more important for insurers and reinsurers.

This week broker Howden Re has published it latest wildfire analysis, which examined the underlying context of European wildfire risk and address what this could mean for underwriting, volatility protection and resilience planning.

Tim Edwards, head of Howden Re International Catastrophe Analytics explained: “Europe is warming faster than many other regions of the world, and we’re seeing longer periods of extreme heat and drought, both of which create conditions conducive to wildfire. The question shouldn’t be solely focussed on the events we’re seeing today, but also on understanding where future risk could emerge, and how quickly that landscape could change with further changes to the climate and housebuilding in wildfire-prone regions.

“A key finding of our work is that Europe’s building stock differs significantly from that of North America and Australia, resulting in less than half the level of extreme building damage in Europe among buildings that have been impacted by wildfire.”

He added: “Europe generally has stricter planning restrictions around development in the wildland-urban interface, so fewer people and properties are built immediately adjacent to high-risk wildfire zones. Crucially, European properties are typically constructed using masonry, concrete and tiled roofs, all of which are generally less susceptible to fire than the timber-frame construction more common in some other regions. That doesn’t eliminate the risk, but it does help explain why we haven’t experienced the same scale of insured losses to date.

“Certain building characteristics in Europe do, however, increase susceptibility to wildfire damage. Howden Re offers clients the ability to identify these building characteristics to support underwriting and accumulation management initiatives.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will make her 2026 State of the European Union address in less than two weeks, and there will be many who say that climate action and particularly efforts to enhance severe wildfire resilience needs to be at the top of the European Union’s agenda for the coming 12 months and beyond.

However, clear warnings, empirical evidence and political expediency rarely mix.

Jon Guy, Editor,

Emerging Risks