SF politician Villy Søvndal has accused Danish People’s Party climate spokesman Malte Larsen of manipulating wildfire figures, after Larsen claimed 2026 has brought the fewest forest fires in Europe on record.
DR reports that Larsen has argued 2026 is the year with the fewest European forest fires since measurements began. Søvndal, a former SF leader and former foreign minister, rejects that conclusion. He now sits in the European Parliament for SF.
According to DR, the core of the disagreement is geography. In the data Larsen refers to, Siberia is counted as part of Europe. In a written comment to DR, Søvndal called that a peculiar form of geography.
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Both politicians took part this week in an edition of DR’s radio program P1 Debat, which dealt with climate change and wildfires. In the program, Larsen accused Søvndal of spreading misinformation and of lying. Søvndal had argued that climate change is producing more forest fires in Europe.
Søvndal told DR that Larsen’s use of the numbers is, at best, a creative way to make figures match a political message. He said the serious part is that such manipulation is used to explain away violent and destructive forest fires. In his account, DF is trying to argue its way around reality rather than discuss solutions.
Two datasets, two pictures
DR sets out the numbers behind the clash. Larsen relies on figures from the Global Wildfire Information System, GWIS, where Siberia makes up 75 percent of the area counted. On that basis, 2026 is below the historical average for wildfires.
If the European Forest Fire Information System is used instead, where Russia is not included, the picture is reversed, DR reports. Larsen has confirmed to DR that in wildfire discussions he counts Siberia as part of Europe as a continent. He accuses politicians such as Søvndal of deliberately misinforming the public about the trend.
Larsen wrote to DR that the amount of wildfires is falling markedly on a global level. He said listeners to left-wing politicians and news outlets, particularly DR, are easily misled into the opposite impression. Søvndal maintains that the fires unfolding in Europe are a consequence of man-made climate change.
A separate DR explainer examines whether Siberia belongs to Europe when wildfires are measured. That article includes the assessment of Martin Drews, professor of climate extremes and Climate Risk Management at the Technical University of Denmark, DTU.
The exchange follows this week’s P1 Debat and comes during a summer of extensive wildfire coverage in Europe. DR notes that thousands of people have been evacuated in France this summer because of wildfires. No other major Danish outlet appears to have reported on the exchange between the two politicians.
