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Supporting EU Authorities Fight Wildfires with Actionable Insights

Saranya | September 26, 2025

Wildfires on the Rise: Assessing Emerging Risks

Wildfires are no longer limited to certain seasons or distant regions. They have become a major global crisis. The scale is striking. According to the EU’s Joint Research Centre, more than 1,000,000 hectares have burned so far this year in Europe, compared to about 273,000 hectares during the same period last year.

The situation in Spain and Portugal shows how serious this problem has become. In Portugal alone, over 216,000 hectares have burned this year, which is huge for a country of its size. Since late February, Portugal has also seen its highest monthly average of wildfires on record, a clear sign of how quickly the situation is worsening.

While fire has always been a natural part of the world’s ecological cycles, the delicate balance has been broken. What were once manageable events are now becoming catastrophic megafires.

These events are no longer just environmental issues, they pose serious challenges for governments, disrupting transport, communication, and power systems, while putting lives at risk. For industries and utilities, the damage brings major financial and operational risks, with losses in Europe alone reaching billions of euros each year.

To keep pace with this growing threat, the approach to wildfire management must change. This article looks at how Earth Observation (EO) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are helping close the gap between detection and response. By using satellite data and advanced analytics, authorities can gain fast, actionable insights to better protect people, infrastructure, and the environment.

At PandionAI, our mission is to provide critical intelligence by turning satellite data into clear and practical information. This includes pinpointing the exact location of a fire front and tracking its movement, which empowers firefighters to plan and act more effectively than ever before.

The Critical Need for Early and Accurate Wildfire Detection

Wildfires may start small, but without early detection they can escalate within minutes into destructive events with widespread consequences.

This rapid escalation puts both civilians and firefighters at higher risk as evacuation and containment become increasingly complex.

Beyond the immediate danger to human lives and property, wildfires degrade air quality on a massive scale. They release smoke and greenhouse gases that harm respiratory health, even thousands of kilometres away from the fire front.

Wildfires also disrupt habitats, threaten biodiversity, and weaken soil structure, which increases vulnerability to erosion, flooding, and landslides.

Aquatic systems are equally at risk, as ash and sediment flow into rivers and lakes, disrupting fragile ecosystems and water quality.

The economic impact of delayed detection is equally severe. Forests are lost, industries and utilities face major setbacks, and public resources are drained by firefighting and recovery efforts.

These consequences make it clear that early detection and proactive action are key to reducing wildfire risks and protecting lives, nature, and resources.

Transforming Satellite Data into Actionable Wildfire Intelligence

Every day, satellites capture an incredible amount of information about our planet. But on its own, raw data isn't enough. At PandionAI, we are passionate about turning vast amounts of raw image data into clear, actionable insights.

These insights enable our users to make critical decisions that increase safety, security, and accountability across the globe by providing alerts about critical events, such as the precise location, size, and movement of a wildfire. This vital data integrates directly into the mapping tools and command systems that emergency teams already use, helping them make faster, more informed decisions and making Earth Observation more valuable and accessible than ever before.

Our roadmap is focused on aggressively expanding our coverage to new, high-risk regions globally, ensuring more communities benefit from our advanced early-detection capabilities. wildfire-sakha-republic-siberia

Joint Efforts with Swedish National Authorities to Mitigate Risks

This summer, Swedish authorities faced challenges in detecting wildfires in remote regions. Their existing systems frequently produced false alerts, triggered by non-fire events such as solar glare or routine heat from industrial facilities.

When potential fires were detected, the information was often low-resolution and lacked the necessary context. In many cases, responders received only a basic information required to assess the situation accurately.

This lack of reliable information made it difficult to understand the scale of the fire and allocate resources effectively. These limitations slowed down response efforts, underscoring the urgent need for more accurate, data-driven solutions.

PandionAI’s system, integrating multiple sources of satellite and sensor data, was deployed across Sweden to deliver more accurate wildfire detection. Unlike existing solutions that often miss incidents or generate false alerts, our system provides more detailed information, enabling the identification of false detections with greater precision.

By providing detailed, context-rich insights on a fire’s precise location, predicted spread, aerial size and severity, key environmental factors such as wind direction, and clear information on the type of property or assets threatened, damaged, or destroyed, from homes to critical infrastructure, PandionAI enabled authorities to quickly distinguish genuine threats from harmless signals.

These alerts gave authorities the ability to make better-informed operational decisions across Sweden. Crucially, the insights were delivered directly into their existing systems, requiring no additional training or investment in new software. This seamless integration demonstrated the potential for responders to make better-informed decisions with greater confidence, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in wildfire management.

Looking ahead.

We are committed to constantly refining our detection algorithms. This will be achieved through more frequent satellite coverage and the integration of several new data sources, further enhancing the accuracy and speed of our alerts.

Looking forward, we are developing a new, globally scalable and advanced fire detection system designed to make this critical technology accessible to a wider range of authorities and organizations. Our mission is to manage today’s challenges while building a future defined by proactive, data-driven resilience.

As climate risks grow, the key advantage is anticipating threats before they become disasters. Today, the technology to stay ahead of wildfires is already here.

Whether your focus is on communities, infrastructure, or long-term resilience, we are ready to partner with you to strengthen your operations.

Contact our experts to schedule a demonstration and learn how PandionAI's actionable intelligence can empower your mission.