Wind Turbines & Forest Fires Coincidence or not?

Back home (I come from Greece), but also in other places that offer a convenient mix of mountain tops and windy weather conditions for most of the year, such as, the Mediterranean countries, wind turbine farms popping up has become a usual sight for the past 25-30 years, with no signs of slowing down.

Wind turbines industry has seen exceptional rise and offered many thousands of new job positions, especially since significant research & development efforts in the past 2 decades helped improve almost every aspect associated with the manufacturing, installation, operation, and maintenance of a wind turbine.

New materials, lighter but stronger; more efficient pitching and yaw systems, leading to better overall efficiency and improved rotor speed control; more robust nacelle and hub designs, reducing maintenance and downtime, and protecting the critical electrical equipment of the turbine.

These, as well as several other improvements and enhancements, paired with the high energy output of modern wind turbines (>5 MWe), have transformed the once burdensome – in terms of logistics and licensing arrangements – and of questionable performance power generating unit, into an attractive, more reliable, and longer-lasting ecological investment opportunity for many.

Wind turbine silhouetted against a bright sun, with a vehicle in the foreground under a clear blue sky.

It was inevitable that wind turbines would eventually secure their place in the renewables podium, being the frontliner of the battle against climate change and environmental concerns. They were also seen as a profitable means to generate “clean” or “green” energy, considering that, at least from my own experience, wind turbine farms were exporting at full power to the grid at peak demand times, when electricity rate is significantly higher.

I am well aware of the infamous debate over how “green” the energy produced by the wind turbines is, given the amount of materials required to build one, the environmental impact from transporting one to mountain tops (opening roads through forests all the way to the top, polluting the vicinity of the installation area), and the cost and management of recycling a wind turbine’s materials when it reaches its end of life, following decommissioning.

However, all studies from accredited universities worldwide to date, have confirmed that the overall impact of a wind turbine’s life cycle, is positive for the environment. During the past few years, in particular, with the increase of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) utilization and other mechanical energy storage methods (e.g. in pumped-storage hydro power plants), wind turbines started making a difference in how decarbonization and net-zero plans are progressing.

Two wind turbines with bent blades on a hilltop with a blue sky background.

But, what about the actual man-made damage done to the environment, when deciding to plant a wind turbine on a mountain top? What are the consequences to the ecosystem, and what do the environmental impact studies say, in relation to the serenity of flora and fauna? Is mankind determined to put everything aside, in light of the GG “Green Growth”? What are we ready to sacrifice today to stabilize any climatic change, and to deliver a healthier Earth to the next generations?

Southern Europe countries have seen a deadly increase in forest wild fires during the past 2 decades. The data is simply jaw-dropping. The European Forest Fires Information System (EFFIS) of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service 1 , implemented by the JRC 2 , keeps a very well detailed record of all wildfires larger than 30 hectares in Europe, and an even more useful statistics portal. See below chart depicting the evolution of burnt area in EU, comparing the 2006-2024 average and year 2025 alone:

Graph of burnt area in EU. Red line (2022) rises sharply, exceeding the average (blue line).

The graph above shows that the area affected by fires has reached 1,025,224 hectares in 2025, which is higher than the average of 323,135 hectares recorded for this time of year over the past 19 years (2006-2024). Let’s take a look at Southern Europe countries with the largest number of wind turbines installed, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and observe the evolution of fires and burned area between 2002-2024, including the fire landcover type overview:

1 https://forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu/

2 https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/projects-and-activities/natural-and-man-made-

hazards/fires/current-wildfire-situation-europe_en , updated on 30 September 2025

Chart: Greek production of agricultural products. Includes time series graph and pie chart showing product shares.

Visual data about Italy: bar/line graph of data over time and a pie chart breakdown.

Chart comparing yearly Spanish tomato yields (1980-2023) with a donut chart of tomato varieties.

Chart: Yearly exports and internal flow for Portugal (line & bar graph). Pie chart shows revenue overview.

While Spain and Portugal seem to have suffered most from the worst wildfires, in terms of absolute burnt area, it is in fact Greece and Italy that lost the most forest area. See below table for a comparison (source: EFFIS Statistical Portal):

Table showing forest fire data from 2002-2023 by country: Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Of course, not all forest fires happened in mountainous areas, where wind turbine farm installations were planned for. Nor is it implied that forest fires are directly related to plans for such constructions. However, it is worth investigating the growth rate/trend of wind turbine additions to these countries during this period, and search for a certain pattern of correlation, as the principle of analogous events applies.

On this point, an important assumption must be made, that in case of a forest fire in a mountain, we would expect the addition of wind turbines there to occur between 1-3 years post the fire event, to account for soil remediation, land formation, licensing time, procurement/transport time, and erection time.

The Total Cumulative Installed Capacity (in MW), the New Capacity per Year (in MW), and the yearly Growth Rate charts, for the period between 2014 and 2024 (no data available for previous years) are presented below for Greece and Italy (which lost a lot of forest areas) 3 :

GREECE

Source: https://wwindea.org/country-reports/europe/greece and https://wwindea.org/country-reports/europe/italy

Line graph showing cumulative installed capacity increasing over time, with values labeled for each year.

Line graph showing fluctuating growth rates over years, peaking in 2019 and sharply declining to zero in 2024.

ITALY

Line graph showing total cumulative installed capacity increasing from 2014 to 2024.

Line graph showing new capacity increasing sharply in 2024 after fluctuating between 150-751 between 2014-2023.

Line graph showing growth rates over time, with a sharp increase in the final year.

As an example, the location of a forest fire in Nafpaktia, Greece in August 2017, became the home of a wind turbine farm by July 2018 (less than a year). Photo below shown for reference:

Top: Smoke over mountains on 12-08-2017. Bottom: Wind turbines visible on the mountain on 04-07-2018.

From the comparison of the charts above, for Greece, the New Capacity added and the growth rate seem to follow the assumption made earlier. More specifically, the 2018-2019 and 2022-2023 spikes follow the 2015-2016 and 2020-2021 huge increase of yearly burnt area, respectively.

Similarly, in Italy, the 2016-2017, 2018-2019, and 2023-2024 growth rate spikes follow the 2013-2014, 2016-2017, and 2020-2021 increase of yearly burnt area, respectively. Again, no implication is made as to the connection between a forest fire in mountainous areas and the plans to plant new wind turbine farms. We can all agree, however, that there is a correlation pattern, irrespective of whether the installations are opportunistic or methodical.

Time to switch gears now, and investigate the technical side of things.

There are many self-pronounced scientists out there, who maintain that a wind turbine can indeed be installed in a forest, with no requirement to burn it down or proceed with land deforestation first.

Ok, but how would that affect the operation and performance of the wind turbine? Here are some basic facts to consider:

In order for a wind turbine to perform properly, a laminar airflow is preferred over a turbulent one
A forest around a wind turbine will cause disturbance to airflow and prevents the wind turbine from reaching the anticipated output, unless the turbine’s tower is so tall that the blades’ lowest tip height is quite higher than the forest tree tops. Of course, this creates more issues with structure integrity, etc., and additionally, the erection cost of the tower is exponentially increasing by height.
If the hill, or the mountain, on top of which wind turbines are installed, has no vegetation, then the airflow towards the top is smooth and accelerated. However, if there is a forest, with tree variety in particular, then the laminar airflow will be broken and the air velocity reaching the turbine at the top is severely decreased. Further, a forest may cause updrafts which will reduce the air velocity, too.
According to the wind park effect (or otherwise, wake effect), which refers to the lower wind speed behind each turbine within the wind farm, and also behind the wind farm as a whole, compared with in front of it, the optimum calculated distance between 2 wind turbines must be 7x the blades’ diameter. For example, for a 90m blades diameter, the optimum distance between 3 wind turbines should be 1260m. The land in between should be deforested, or burnt, to avoid the aforementioned effects. For the installations of 5 wind turbines of this example, we would require a deforested, or burnt, 3km+ mountain ridge.
A wind farm on a mountaintop must be connected with a suitable HV substation. The overhead transmission line (OHTL) must not go over forests in a straight line. If these forests have burnt, then it’s easier to install the transmission towers, to optimize losses, and export energy in a more efficient way. We have to keep in mind that the energy losses of the transmission line connecting the wind farm with the HV substation are eventually paid by the end consumer, as it so happens in the majority of European countries.
In a forest mountainous area, which usually is an inaccessible one, a wind turbine installation will require opening of a wide road through the forest, drainage works, and other significant geotechnical works, that may increase the budget dramatically.
The cost and time to produce an environmental impact study for a wind farm project in a forest area is much more than that of a deforested, or burnt, area.

Overall, we can safely conclude that the existence of a forest makes a mountaintop area unattractive for planning a wind farm installation. Notwithstanding the additional costs to cope with all related issues such as, access, licensing, technical, and infrastructure, operating a wind turbine next to, or within, a forest area, is inefficient and probably deviating from the macroeconomic goals of the investors/funders. To summarize, it is preferable to install wind turbines where no vegetation or forests exist, to cut down on costs and to implement a technically acceptable installation. In areas where this is not possible, land deforestation or a forest fire may open the way to potential wind farm investments. While it cannot de categorically concluded that forest wildfires in Southern Europe countries are somehow related to plans to install new wind turbine farms, the statistical data show that there may be a correlation pattern between the increase of burnt forest area in these countries, and the addition of new wind capacity as well as increase of wind energy growth rate.

COINCIDENCE OR NOT? I guess it will take some time before we can reach a conclusion …