The FRA 2005 (Global Forest Resources Assessment) has information about the forests of 112 countries (4/5 of the world forests). However, it is difficult to conclude if the numbers of forest fires are increasing or not due to the lack of complete world statistics using similar methodologies for collecting data.
Fire management programs use both fire prevention and fire control to combat the problem of forest fires. Studies have showed that fire prevention is more economical than fire control.

The most recent statistics found for Europe was for 2006. There was a great difference between the number of fires and burnt areas between the northern and southern parts of Europe. For this reason, separate studies were carried out for the 5 southern countries of Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece).
The following two graphs show this fact.

More specifically, in the southern parts of Europe the number of forest fires during the period of 1980-2006 was 1 336 291, were 13 298 486 hectares of forest were burned. The distribution of the fires and burned areas is represented in the following two graphs.

The statistical data for the forest fires occurring during the period 1980-2007 for our country.

We can easily distinguish that the summer of 2007 was the worst year for forest fires in Greece with not only the destruction of forests but with human loss as well. In the end, the final count was 64 dead and 268 834 hectares of burnt forest making it the worst forest fire on a world level.
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• State Of The World's Forests 2007, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Rome, 2007
• Forest Fires in Europe, Report No7 / 2006, European Commission, Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability
• Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Rome, 2005
• http://ec.europa.eu/environment/civil/forestfires_el_2007.htm
• http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/politics/424789.html