Extreme temperatures continue to hit large parts of Europe, and western France is among those hardest hit this week.
Temperatures could reach record levels in 15 regions in the southwest and thousands of people are forced to evacuate.
It writes the British TV channel BBC.
– Never seen anything like it
Thousands are evacuated
Forest fires in France have in recent days forced more than 24,000 people to flee. In several places, emergency shelters have been set up for the evacuees.
Gironde, a popular tourist region in the southwest, has been particularly hard hit. Firefighters are fighting to control fires that have destroyed more than 140 square kilometers of land since last Tuesday, according to the BBC.
Journalists from several international newspapers were last week escorted into a forest in the direction of where the fires are now raging at their worst.
sea view
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– At first you could see clouds of smoke hanging in the forest, but it all seemed relatively under control.
– But the further in we got, the worse it got, says BBC reporter on the spot, Jessica Parker.
Now it will be over 30 degrees
Difficult conditions
Furthermore, Parker reports large fires and persistent firefighters at the site.
– Suddenly there were endless flames along the roadside. The trees burned. Firefighters along the route tried endlessly to deal with the most serious fires, says BBC’s Jessica Parker.
WORKING HARD: Firefighters in France are now working day and night to stop the ongoing forest fire in Louchats, in the Gironde region of France. Photo: Thibaud Moritz / AFP.
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Jean-Luc Gleyze, president of the Gironde region, tells the BBC that fires have continued to grow in La-Teste-de-Buch and Landiras due to the hot and windy weather, making it difficult for firefighters to contain them.
– They have to fight against this fire that grows and grows, sometimes it also gets very high, he says.
– Several villages must be evacuated, he adds.
– Wish us some rain
Many countries affected
The heat waves in southern Europe have had major consequences for the inhabitants of the countries hardest hit.
In Spain and Portugal, more than 1,000 deaths have been attributed to the heat in recent days, according to the BBC.
Temperatures in Portugal reached 47 degrees on Thursday – a new record for July. One third of the mainland is still exposed to extreme fire danger, according to the national meteorological office IPMA.
EVACUATED: Over 24,000 people have been evacuated in France due to forest fires and extreme heat. Photo: Thibaud Moritz / AFP.
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– This is due to severe or extreme drought conditions practically everywhere, says BBC’s Portugal correspondent Alison Roberts.
A heat wave has also ravaged the UK in the past week, and the country’s meteorological institute, The Met Office, has extended the warning of danger to life and health as temperatures can rise to over 40 degrees in parts of the country.
EXTREME HEAT: This is the weather forecast for the UK next Tuesday. Photo: MetOffice.
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The health authorities are “pressed to the breaking point”, according to the newspaper Independent.
Thus, the meteorological authorities have issued a red danger warning for the first time ever. Hospitals and ambulance services have declared a black alarm – the highest level of preparedness in the country.
Found dead on sun lounger
– Will become more common
Several heat waves have hit Europe in recent weeks, and some believe that this may become the norm in the years to come.
– Heat waves have become more frequent, more intense and last longer due to man-made climate change. The world has already warmed by around 1.1 degrees since the industrial era began, and temperatures will continue to rise as governments around the world make sharp cuts in emissions.
This is what Enrique Sanchez, dean of the Faculty of Environmental Science and Biochemistry at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, tells the BBC.
– In the long term, in the following years, there is no possibility that temperatures will not increase. Heat waves will become more and more common throughout Europe, he says.
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