Throughout summer 2026, Europe has been facing extreme heat, temperatures they haven’t faced before. This extreme heat has led to many wildfires, and this season alone has burned more than 619,000 hectares across the EU, with 1768 fires recorded as of August 20th. However, besides just destroying forests, the fires uncovered a dangerous legacy from World Wars I and II. Flames burned away vegetation and exposed buried bombs, mines, and ammunition that had been hidden for decades. In some areas, extreme heat has even caused old explosives to detonate, which is an unexpected yet fascinating consequence of the heat. Let’s look into this more. 

2026 has been an extremely hot year for Europe as a whole. July and August are often the warmest months of the year in Europe (20-30 degrees Celsius), but this year temperatures reached record highs of 40°C in Paris. Europe as a whole isn’t exactly built for this kind of heat. Many older buildings are specifically designed to store heat, and many families don’t have air conditioning at home. For these reasons, the heat itself has become dangerous, even taking the lives of two children in France during July, after sitting in an incredibly hot car. 

However, beyond the heat, European wildfires became especially severe and dangerous due to a combination of weather and vegetation conditions. In January, heavy rain caused plants and grasses to grow very quickly. When summer brought extreme heat, that vegetation dried out and became fuel for fires. Drought, low humidity, and strong winds then helped flames spread rapidly across much of Western Europe. Reports from many sources don’t identify one single cause or spark for the fires; instead, they emphasize the conditions that made them easier to ignite and harder to control. The wildfires have been extreme; the EU had recorded 1769 fires and more than 619000 hectares of burned land by August 20th. For this reason, precautions have been enacted; according to the World Economic Forum, “More than 300,000 people have been evacuated from their homes across both France and Spain, where the fires have been particularly widespread and challenging to contain.”

Europe as a whole contains large amounts of old ammunition because it was the center of two major world wars. During World War I, millions of artillery shells were fired across countries like France and Belgium, especially along the Western Front. Many of these shells failed to explode and became buried in fields, forests, and trenches. Then, World War II added even more unexploded bombs, grenades, mines, and ammunition. Cities and military areas were heavily bombed, while armies also abandoned weapons and supplies when they changed positions. After the wars ended, much of this material was never recovered because it was hidden underground, covered by vegetation, or just too difficult to remove. 

Now, these 2026 wildfires have uncovered the dangerous bombs, mines, and ammunition left behind from both of the wars. As fires burned through forests and old battlefields, they destroyed the vegetation that had hidden much of the unexploded weapons for so many years. In some places, the extreme heat even caused old explosives to go off. Near Bordeaux in southwestern France, a large wildfire exposed a cache believed to contain World War II-era ammunition. In Belgium’s Liege province, officials reported several small detonations in areas affected by fire, including the High Fens, where major fighting took place during World War II. Explosions connected to old munitions have also been reported in Germany and the Netherlands. Because of the danger, emergency crews and bomb disposal teams have had to be very careful when entering burned areas. Overall, the discoveries show how modern wildfires are exposing weapons that have remained buried and undisturbed for more than 80 years!