Europe burns as heatwave breaks temperature records

A fierce heatwave in western Europe has left much of the continent wilting under a scorching sun, feeding ferocious wildfires and threatening to smash more temperature records on Tuesday.

In Britain, forecasters said the current national record of 38.7 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) could be broken and 40C breached for the first time, with experts blaming climate change and predicting more frequent extreme weather to come.

On Monday the 38.1C recorded in Suffolk, in eastern England, made it the hottest day of the year and the third-hottest day on record.

Across the Channel in France, a host of towns and cities recorded their highest-ever temperatures on Monday, the national weather office said.

The mercury hit 39.3C in Brest on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, in the far northwest of the country, smashing a previous record of 35.1C from 2002.

Saint-Brieuc, on the Channel coast, hit 39.5C beating a previous record of 38.1C, and the western city of Nantes recorded 42C, beating a decades-old high of 40.3C, set in 1949.

Firefighters in France's southwest were still struggling in the crushing heat to contain two massive fires that have caused widespread destruction.

For nearly a week now, armies of firefighters and a fleet of waterbombing aircraft have battled blazes that have mobilised much of France's firefighting capacity.

- Holiday makers evacuated -

Ireland saw temperatures of 33C in Dublin -- the highest since 1887 -- while in the Netherlands, temperatures reached 35.4C in the southern city of Westdorpe. Although that was not a record, higher temperatures are expected there on Tuesday.

Neighbouring Belgium also expected temperatures of 40C and over.

The European heatwave is the second to engulf parts of the southwest of the continent in recent weeks.

European Commission researchers, meanwhile, said nearly half (46 percent) of EU territory was exposed to warning-level drought. Eleven percent was at an alert level, and crops were already suffering from lack of water.

Blazes in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have destroyed thousands of hectares of land.

An area nine kilometres (5.5 miles) long and eight kilometres wide was still ablaze near France's Dune de Pilat, Europe's highest sand dune, turning picturesque landscapes, popular campsites and pristine beaches into a scorching mess.

The blaze was literally "blowing things up", such was its ferocity, said Marc Vermeulen, head of the local fire service. "Pine trunks of 40 years are bursting."

A total of 8,000 people were being evacuated from near the dune Monday as a precaution, as changing winds blew thick smoke into residential areas, officials said.

Hurriedly packing her car, Patricia Monteil said she would go to her daughter's home in another part of the district. "But if that goes up in flames too, I don't know what to do."

Around 32,000 tourists or residents have been forced to decamp in France, many to emergency shelters.

On Monday evening, prosecutors in the southwest city of Bordeaux said a man suspected of having started one of the fires in the region had been taken into custody.

The two fires in the region have destroyed nearly 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land.

At Avigon, in the southeast, a fire that first started last Thursday surged back to life on Monday, local firefighters reported, while a separate fire broke out up in the northwest, in Brittany.

In Spain, a fire burning in the northwestern province of Zamora claimed the life of a 69-year-old shepherd, regional authorities said. On Sunday, a fireman died in the same area.

Later on Monday it was reported an office worker in his fifties had died from heatstroke in Madrid.

Authorities have reported around 20 wildfires still raging from the south to Galicia in the far northwest, where blazes have destroyed around 4,500 hectares of land.

- 'Enjoy the sunshine' -

The fires in Portugal claimed two more lives in the northern Vila Real region, after a car carrying two local villagers crashed off the road as they appeared to be trying to flee a fire zone, local officials said.

"We found the car and these two people, aged around 70 years, completely burnt," the mayor of Murca, Mario Artur Lopez, told SIC Noticias television. The victims were from the nearby village of Penabeice, he added.

Almost the entire country has been on high alert for wildfires despite a slight drop in temperatures, which last Thursday hit 47C -- a record for July.

The fires have already killed two other people, injured around 60 and destroyed between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of land there.

In Britain, the government, already on the ropes after a series of scandals that forced Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quit, has been accused of taking the situation too lightly.

Johnson was criticised for having failed to attend an emergency meeting on the crisis on Sunday, instead hosting a farewell party at his state-funded country retreat.

And medics condemned comments by Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who appeared to minimise the threat from the extreme heat when he told Britons to "enjoy the sunshine".

The Sun tabloid headlined its coverage of the heat "British Bake Off", observing that the "scorcher" was making the UK hotter than Ibiza, where temperatures were a comparatively low 30C.

The extreme temperatures saw flights suspended at Luton Airport near London and at Royal Air Force base Brize Norton due to "defects" on the runway, with no let-up expected for Tuesday.

Trains were cancelled and schools closed in affected areas.

In Brighton, on England's south coast, bank worker Abu Bakr put the heatwave in perspective.

"I come from Sudan," he said. "Forty, forty-five degrees is just the norm. This is as good as it can be."

Europe's hottest summers
Paris (AFP) July 18, 2022 - Europe's increasingly frequent heatwaves are back under the spotlight over devastating wildfires and with sweltering temperatures forecast to hit record highs in Britain and France this week.

In just over two decades, the continent has experienced its five hottest summers since 1500.

- 2022: Double trouble -

A heatwave engulfing western Europe, the second in a month, sparks huge wildfires and threatens to smash records in Britain and France.

Fires in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain force thousands of residents and tourists to flee and kill several people, including a Spanish shepherd and a firefighter.

Britain braces for an all-time high of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) or more. Brittany in France could also register similar temperatures in what would be a regional record.

The weather warnings come hot on the heels of a scorching spell in June, where parts of Europe, from Spain to Germany, sizzled at unseasonal highs of between 40C to 43C.

- 2021: Hottest ever -

Last year is Europe's hottest summer on record, according to the European climate change monitoring service Copernicus.

Between late July and early August 2021, Greece endures what Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis calls the country's worst heatwave in over 30 years, with temperatures hitting 45C in some regions.

In Spain, temperatures reach 47C in parts of the south, according to national weather agency AEMET.

The heat and drought spark large wildfires along the Mediterranean, from Turkey and Greece to Italy and Spain.

- 2019: Northern Europe swelters -

The summer of 2019 brings two heatwaves, which leave around 2,500 people dead, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters of Belgium's Louvain University.

In France, temperatures hit a record 46C on June 28 in the southern town of Verargues. Thousands of schools are closed.

On July 24 and 25, northern Europe fries in record heat. Temperatures of 42.6C are recorded at Lingen in northwestern Germany, 41.8C in Begijnendijk in northern Belgium and 38.7C in the eastern English city of Cambridge.

- 2018: Drought drains the Danube -

The second half of July and beginning of August 2018 sees very high temperatures across much of Europe and rivers running dry due to drought.

The Danube falls to its lowest level in 100 years in some areas, notably exposing World War II tanks in Serbia that were submerged since the conflict.

Portugal and Spain suffer hugely destructive forest fires.

- 2017: Months of mugginess -

Much of Europe, but especially the south, sweats from late June to well into August.

Spain set a record of 47.3C on July 13 in the southern town of Montoro.

Persistent drought sparks forest fires in Portugal.

- 2015: Back-to-back heatwaves -

It's heatwave after heatwave throughout the summer of 2015 which leaves an estimated 1,700 people dead in France.

In Britain, roads melt and trains are delayed in the hottest July on record, with temperatures reaching 36.7C at Heathrow airport.

- 2007: Greek forests ablaze -

Central and southern Europe are parched by drought throughout June and July, provoking a spate of forest fires in Italy, North Macedonia and Serbia.

In Hungary, 500 people die as a result of the heat.

- 2003: 70,000 dead -

Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal all experience exceptional heat in the first half of August, with Portugal suffering a record 47.3C at Amareleja in the south.

An EU study of 16 nations puts the number of excess deaths across the bloc during the heatwave as high as 70,000, with France and Italy each seeing between 15,000 and 20,000 fatalities, according to various reports since.

In France, most of the victims are elderly people in an episode that traumatises the country and leads to the implementation of new systems of protection during heatwaves.

Related Links
Weather News at TerraDaily.com

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Britain, France brace for temperature records as Europe fires rage
Paris (AFP) July 18, 2022
Britain and France went on high alert on Monday, bracing for record temperatures from a punishing heatwave as deadly wildfires raging in parts of southwest Europe showed no sign of abating. Forecasters have put 15 French departments on the highest state of alert for extreme temperatures while in Britain the government was accused of failing to take seriously the impending heat emergency as forecasters warned that lives were at risk. The heatwave, spreading north, began as the second to engulf pa ... read more