France — Natural Disaster Report
Europe · Live status: High (130 active events)
Current situation: 130 natural disaster events are currently monitored in France, with a worst severity of Severe. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
France experiences a wide range of hazards across its varied geography. The 2003 heatwave caused roughly 15,000 excess deaths in France alone and permanently changed European heat-health policy. Mediterranean départements face the cévenol episodes, in which moist air forced over the Massif Central produces extreme rainfall and deadly flash floods in autumn. Atlantic storms bring damaging wind and coastal surge, as with Storm Xynthia in 2010. The Alps face avalanches and glacial hazards, southeastern France faces summer wildfires, and the overseas territories in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean are exposed to hurricanes and cyclones.
Live map — France
Loading live data… · Marker positions are approximate; severity is labelled in each popup. Sources: USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC.
Active alerts & recent events
Latest earthquakes
No events match these filters right now. Data syncs run continuously — check the live map or widen the filters.
Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare France's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in France
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
- Cold Waves in France
- Floods in France
- Heatwaves in France
- Severe Storms in France
- Wildfires in France
Risk profile
Heatwaves June-August. Cévenol flash floods September-November in the southeast. Atlantic windstorms October-March. Alpine avalanches December-April. Wildfires July-September in Provence and Corsica. Cyclones in overseas territories.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in France
4,448 internal displacements
Largest single event: 2,000 from wildfire, beginning 5 August 2025.
A displacement is a movement, not a person: somebody forced from home more than once in a year is counted more than once. These are movements caused by disasters only — displacement caused by conflict is counted separately and is not included here.
| Hazard | Displacements in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Wildfire | 2,475 |
| Storm | 1,900 |
| Flood | 65 |
| Mass Movement | 8 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4,448 |
| 2024 | 3,967 |
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Internal Displacement Database. IDMC publishes annually, so the latest year here is the latest they have finalised — not the current one.
River flood forecast — France
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: in 2 days (on 2026-10-21) · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: in 2 days (on 2026-10-21) · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
GloFAS forecasts are computer model output, published for information only. They are not a flood warning: only national and regional authorities issue flood warnings for their own area. A reporting point is a place on the model's river network, which may sit a few kilometres from the town it is named after. All 259 rivers →
What this site sees in France
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) | 383 | Europe only. It publishes no coordinates at all, so every warning here is placed at the centre of its country and the area name is the only reliable indication of where it applies. |
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | 236 | Each warning comes from one country own alerting authority, so the scale is that agency scale and is not comparable between countries. Many agencies publish no coordinates, and those warnings are placed at the centre of the country rather than where the weather is - the area name is the real answer. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | 2 | Global, but deliberately selective: it alerts on disasters likely to need INTERNATIONAL response. Serious local flooding that a national agency handles alone will not appear here. |
| NASA FIRMS | 1 | Global, but it sees only what the satellite saw on its pass, and thick cloud hides fire. A quiet day here is not evidence that nothing burned. |
| US Geological Survey | none | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | none | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| NASA EONET | none | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers | none | These two centres warn for the US and Canadian coasts and for the Pacific and Caribbean basins. The Indian Ocean and Mediterranean have their own warning centres, which are not read here. Their routine information statements - the ones that say there is NO tsunami danger - are deliberately not imported, so an empty tsunami list means no threat was issued, not that nothing was checked. |
| NOAA National Hurricane Center | none | The Atlantic and the eastern and central Pacific only. No typhoon in the western Pacific and no cyclone in the Indian Ocean or the southern hemisphere appears here; those come from GDACS and from national services. |
| ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) | none | Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning. |
Not applicable here: US National Weather Service — Covers the United States only. It publishes nothing about any other country, so its absence from a country page is not an outage. ; USGS Volcano Hazards Program — United States volcanoes only - Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades, Yellowstone, California and the Northern Mariana Islands. It says nothing about Indonesia, Iceland, Italy or anywhere else, so its silence about a foreign eruption is not a judgement about that eruption.
Major historical disasters — France
| Event | Type | Date | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 European Heatwave | Heatwave | Aug 1, 2003 | 70,000 |
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in France?
There are currently 130 monitored natural disaster events in France. The overall risk status is High. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does France face?
France experiences a wide range of hazards across its varied geography. The 2003 heatwave caused roughly 15,000 excess deaths in France alone and permanently changed European heat-health policy.
When is the main natural disaster season in France?
Heatwaves June-August. Cévenol flash floods September-November in the southeast. Atlantic windstorms October-March. Alpine avalanches December-April. Wildfires July-September in Provence and Corsica. Cyclones in overseas territories. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in France?
Official warnings for France are issued by Météo-France vigilance. The link is on this page. This site aggregates and reports; it does not issue warnings, and in an emergency the national agency is the authority.
What is the deadliest recorded natural disaster in France?
Of the events documented on this site, the deadliest in France is the 2003 European Heatwave (2003), with around 70,000 deaths. Excess-mortality studies estimate ~70,000 across Europe. This is drawn from documented records held here and is not a complete historical archive.
Where does this disaster data for France come from?
Data is aggregated from official sources including USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, ReliefWeb and national agencies. Every event links to its original source, and update times are shown on each record.
Data sources: USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC, ReliefWeb (UN OCHA). See data sources & attribution and methodology. This page does not replace official emergency guidance.