“Wildfires in Britain and Europe this year are among the worst in decades, yet direct deaths are at some of the lowest levels, according to a Telegraph analysis.

As of early August, 505,683 hectares of land have burned across Europe, forcing the evacuation of more than 360,000 people as uncontrollable flames reach major cities, towns, and villages.

The problem is global – in the US, Nevada declared a state of emergency over the weekend after a wildfire caused more than 42,000 people to evacuate their homes.

But what sets 2026 apart isn’t just the vast areas of land burned, but how few deaths have been caused by the fires.

This summer, just 14 people are reported to have died in European wildfires, the vast majority in a single blaze in Almería, southern Spain…

The decline reflects a decade of investment and problem-solving, say experts.

Early-warning systems, evacuation planning, and firefighting capacity have all been built up in Europe and around the world in response to the growing risk. In short, we are leading and adapting.”

From Telegraph.

“Tropical cyclones are among the most dangerous and costly weather phenomena, yet forecasting them remains a profound scientific challenge. Here, we introduce WeatherNext Cyclones (WN-C), an AI operational weather model producing state-of-the-art ensemble forecasts for track, intensity, and size of tropical cyclones worldwide. Trained on a combination of global analysis data1 and a global database of historical tropical cyclones2,3, WN-C generates large ensembles of possible global weather and cyclone scenarios extending 15 days into the future. Evaluated on tropical cyclones from 2023–2025, the track, intensity and wind radii predictions from WN-C offer an average of a day or more of lead time advantage over leading operational models, an improvement in accuracy comparable to the progress seen over the last decade of operational development.”

From Nature.

“When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted southwestern Japan last week, its force mirrored the kind of seismic shocks capable of flattening cities and claiming hundreds or even thousands of lives.

Yet across the island of Kyushu, the violent shaking destroyed or heavily damaged just a few hundred buildings. One week after the quake, the death toll was 38…

'We see that there are huge differences in the number of casualties,' said Katsuichiro Goda, a professor of earthquake engineering at Western University in Canada. Mr. Goda, who conducted field reconnaissance in Kumamoto after the 2016 quakes, credits much of that difference to how the prefecture has rebuilt over the past decade, including spending tens of billions of dollars on earthquake proofing.”

From New York Times.

“With wildfires burning north-west of Athens, Greece is testing whether a new fleet of thermal satellites can give firefighters earlier warning and a clearer view of the blazes that are becoming harder to contain in a warming climate.

The Hellenic Fire System, a constellation of four compact, low-flying thermal satellites, transmitted its first images to Earth in June. The system is due to become fully functional in September, with firefighters still being trained to use it.

But it is already providing data to authorities, including about devastating fires that ripped across popular Greek island resorts and the region of Attica near Athens in recent weeks.”

From Financial Times.