Toute l'actualitéIn July 2026, the wildfires that swept through Die and the Fontainebleau Forest revealed a new dimension of wildfire risk in France. After a record-breaking spring and three episodes of extreme heat since May, the question is no longer simply how to restore burned areas. It is also how to adapt landscapes, forests and the places that depend on them to a future shaped by more frequent climate extremes and natural hazards. This is not solely a challenge for public authorities or forest managers. It is increasingly becoming a strategic issue for businesses.
2026 Changes the Way We Understand Wildfire Risk
The spring of 2026 was the warmest ever recorded in France, with temperatures averaging 1.7°C above the seasonal norm and rainfall 30% below average. Three episodes of extreme heat followed in less than two months. In June alone, temperatures were 3.8°C above normal, while rainfall remained almost 50% below seasonal averages. By early July, severe soil moisture deficits affected virtually the whole of mainland France and Corsica.
Yet it is important to distinguish what ignites a wildfire from what allows it to escalate. In France, around 90% of wildfires are caused by human activity, whether accidental or deliberate. Preventing risky behaviour therefore remains essential. But high temperatures, prolonged drought, low atmospheric humidity, strong winds and increasingly dry vegetation largely determine how fast and how intensely a fire spreads.
Climate change does not ignite most wildfires. It does, however, multiply the conditions in which a single spark can escalate into a major crisis.
Nearly 4,400 hectares burned in the Diois region. Almost 2,000 hectares were affected in the Fontainebleau Forest—around 10% of this emblematic forest massif. At the peak of the emergency, close to 1,000 firefighters, supported by four Dash aircraft and two Canadair water bombers, were deployed in what became the largest aerial firefighting operation ever conducted in the Paris region.
The geography of these two fires is almost as significant as their scale. One developed in the mountains of the Drôme, an area already experiencing increasingly Mediterranean climate conditions. The other struck one of France's most iconic forests, on the doorstep of Paris. Between these two events, dozens of fires affecting forests, heathlands, scrubland and agricultural land mobilised emergency services across much of the country.
Wildfire Risk Is No Longer Confined to the Mediterranean, the Summer Season or Isolated Events
The Fontainebleau wildfire should be seen as a watershed moment. Météo-France projections show that, in a +4°C France, high meteorological wildfire risk could extend across the entire country. Regions stretching from the Loire Valley to the Paris Basin could experience frequencies of high wildfire danger comparable to those currently observed in the Mediterranean hinterland.
The challenge is not only that wildfire risk is expanding geographically. It is also becoming increasingly simultaneous.
When several large wildfires break out at the same time, firefighting aircraft, helicopters, specialised units and mutual aid resources must be deployed across multiple fronts. National response capacity remains indispensable. But it cannot replace local preparedness.
That preparedness includes wildfire prevention infrastructure such as forest access tracks, water supply points, fuel breaks, the management of the wildland–urban interface, surveillance systems, evacuation planning and business continuity arrangements.
Because the impacts of a wildfire rarely stop at the forest edge.
Smoke degrades air quality. Burned soils become more vulnerable to erosion and runoff. Roads, railways, utilities, tourism and access to natural resources can all be disrupted. The consequences are ecological, but equally economic, social and public-health related.
Wildfire risk has therefore become a systemic territorial risk.
From Plot-Scale Management to Landscape-Scale Resilience
Eliminating fire entirely is neither realistic nor desirable when extreme drought, high temperatures and strong winds converge. The objective is instead to reduce the likelihood of high-severity, recurrent or uncontrollable wildfires capable of overwhelming both ecosystem recovery and emergency response capacity.
Fire severity and the interval between successive fires are among the most important determinants of forest regeneration. When wildfires recur before young trees have reached reproductive maturity, natural recovery can be permanently compromised.
This means that the relevant scale for action is no longer the individual forest plot. It is the forest landscape, and more broadly the wider landscape in which it is embedded.
At that scale, resilience depends on combining multiple management approaches: reducing fuel continuity, maintaining open areas or agricultural land where appropriate, improving emergency access, managing forest edges, supporting silvopastoral practices, implementing targeted thinning, managing understory vegetation and, where carefully planned and appropriately governed, using prescribed burning.
None of these measures replaces fire prevention or emergency response. Rather, they increase the time and operational space available for firefighters to contain a wildfire before it escalates.
Above all, they require collective governance, bringing together public and private forest owners, land managers, farmers, local authorities, fire services, scientists, civil society organisations and local communities.
Every Forest Requires Its Own Adaptation Strategy
There is no universal blueprint for wildfire resilience. Adapting a forest begins with understanding its history, species composition, ecological functioning and the specific vulnerabilities of the landscape in which it is rooted.
Increasing diversity—in species, age classes and forest structure—is an important lever for strengthening resilience to drought, storms, pests and disease. It also enhances the ecological functions on which healthy forests depend. But diversity should never become a principle applied indiscriminately.
A 2024 study published in Scientific Reports, based on nearly 2,800 burned forest stands across Spain, found that while some species mixtures improved resistance to wildfire, others had the opposite effect. Species identity, relative abundance, biological traits and local environmental conditions all proved to be decisive.
The same principle applies to forest structure. Multi-layered forests can provide important ecological benefits, retain more moisture and support greater biodiversity. Yet poorly managed vertical continuity can also allow flames to climb from the forest floor into the canopy.
The objective, therefore, is not to maximise structural complexity for its own sake. It is to design forest mosaics that interrupt both horizontal and vertical fuel continuity while preserving the ecosystem functions that underpin long-term resilience.
Every silvicultural strategy should therefore begin with a site-specific diagnosis, taking into account future climate conditions, soil characteristics, topography, stand history, water availability, land use and long-term management capacity.
The projects supported by Reforest'Action illustrate why context matters.
- In the Plaine des Maures (Var), the priority is to prevent the dense natural regeneration of maritime pine from recreating the same homogeneous, highly combustible forest that burned in 2021, while encouraging the return of cork oak.
- In Punta di Basi (Corsica), a wildfire nearly forty years ago left behind an extremely dense maquis that is now difficult to access. Opening strategic access corridors, improving access for firefighters and supporting naturally regenerating cork oaks help fragment fuel continuity, facilitate emergency response and reinforce ecological recovery already underway.
- On the Causse Méjean (Lozère), a 1,200-hectare forest dominated by Austrian black pine and affected by widespread decline is gradually being transformed into an uneven-aged, mixed continuous-cover forest.
These examples illustrate a reality that is often overlooked: restoring a forest does not always mean planting trees. Depending on local conditions, it may involve selective thinning, releasing naturally regenerating trees, opening access routes, protecting natural regeneration or gradually transforming forest stands over several decades.
After the Fire: Restoring Forests Without Recreating Vulnerability
Back in 2022, Reforest'Action argued that post-fire recovery should not automatically begin with immediate replanting. The priority is first to secure affected sites, protect soils and assess the forest's natural capacity to regenerate. That principle remains entirely valid. What recent experience has added, however, is another imperative: do not recreate the very conditions that allowed the wildfire to spread in the first place.
Post-fire decisions should be guided by the actual severity of the damage, the presence of surviving trees and seed sources, soil condition, erosion risk, natural regeneration dynamics and projected future climate conditions.
Where natural regeneration is sufficient, it can be protected and supported. Where it proves absent, excessively homogeneous or poorly suited to future conditions, targeted enrichment planting or carefully designed reforestation may be required.
France's Label Bas-Carbone already reflects this approach by allowing restoration projects to be financed between two and five years after a wildfire. This period makes it possible to observe natural regeneration before deciding whether to support it or intervene through planting where forest cover fails to recover spontaneously.
But the speed of restoration should never become the primary measure of success. A site may quickly recover tree cover while recreating a dense, homogeneous and highly combustible forest. Restoring a forest means restoring ecological functions: protecting soils, improving water infiltration, providing habitat for biodiversity, storing carbon, regulating water cycles, enabling natural regeneration and strengthening resilience to multiple disturbances over time.
Financing Resilience: Why Businesses Have a Role to Play
As wildfire risk evolves, so too must the way forests are financed.
Today, carbon finance remains one of the most powerful mechanisms for supporting forest restoration. But it is not designed to fund every measure needed to build wildfire resilience.
Many of the actions that strengthen landscapes before a fire occurs—fuel management, strategic thinning, the restoration of ecological mosaics, improvements to forest access, support for silvopastoral systems or the maintenance of firebreaks—often generate little or no measurable carbon benefit. As a result, they frequently fall outside the scope of carbon-crediting methodologies.
Building resilient landscapes therefore requires blended financing, combining carbon finance with public funding, biodiversity finance, water-related investment, philanthropic capital and private-sector contributions. For businesses, this shift is more than a question of corporate responsibility.
Forests underpin water security, agricultural production, supply chains, climate resilience and biodiversity. As climate risks intensify, investing in healthier and more resilient landscapes is increasingly becoming an investment in the long-term stability of the economic systems on which businesses themselves depend.
This is precisely where companies can play a transformative role.
Beyond financing carbon sequestration alone, they can help support integrated adaptation strategies that strengthen forest resilience, reduce future wildfire risk and deliver lasting benefits for ecosystems, local communities and the broader economy.
The wildfires of 2026 are not an isolated event. They signal a structural shift in France's wildfire risk. As climate change reshapes the conditions under which fires ignite and spread, adaptation can no longer focus solely on restoring what has been lost. It must also reduce the vulnerability of the landscapes that remain. That means moving beyond short-term responses and embracing long-term resilience. It means recognising that planting trees is only one of many tools available—and not always the most appropriate one. It means designing forests that are better able to withstand future disturbances, while managing landscapes as interconnected socio-ecological systems rather than isolated parcels. Ultimately, adapting to wildfire is not simply about protecting forests. It is about safeguarding the ecological functions, economic activities and human communities that depend on them.