For Spotlight, François Picard is pleased to welcome Johan Sjöström, Senior Research Scientist at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. He argues that the devastating wildfires affecting northern France are not an isolated anomaly but part of a "new normal" for Europe. His focus moves beyond extreme weather to examine the interaction between climate, vegetation, land management and institutional preparedness.
Rather than attributing the crisis solely to rising temperatures, he presents wildfire risk as the product of multiple reinforcing factors: wetter winters that generate combustible vegetation, repeated heatwaves that desiccate landscapes, strong winds that accelerate fire behaviour, and land management systems that have yet to adapt to these evolving conditions.
His central contention is that Europe must shift from a reactive model centred on emergency response towards a preventative strategy based on strategic landscape design, ecological planning and long-term adaptation to what may increasingly represent "the new normal."
