Iceland’s Reykjanes fires may burn for decades, history suggests

Photograph: Icelandic Coast Guard/Reuters

For 800 years the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland has been a relatively peaceful place. But in recent months fiery volcanic fissures have been bursting open, spilling straight lines of lava across the landscape. This month several homes in Grindavík were destroyed as molten rock spilled into the town. The fires have dampened down for now but the rock record suggests there are more to come.

“Reykjanes is fed by five volcanic systems, many of which come to life every 800 to 1,000 years,” says Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at Lancaster University. The last time this happened was about 1,100 years ago – soon after the Vikings had established themselves on Iceland – and the Reykjanes fires, as they were known, erupted on and off for about 300 years.

Today the peninsula is a busier place and home to an airport, a geothermal power plant and a number of small towns including Grindavík and Þorlákshöfn. The airport does not sit on any of the volcanic systems but the power plant – which supplies heat and hot water to around 30,000 people – straddles a magma reservoir. If history repeats, Iceland can expect decades of Reykjanes fires, but its people are good at preparing for volcanism and finding ways to live alongside it.