Southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula remained plagued by devastating fires and sweltering temperatures on Friday, while further north the United Kingdom went on red alert, fearing it might exceed 40 degrees this week. next.
This heat wave is the second in barely a month. The multiplication of these phenomena is a direct consequence of global warming according to scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency.
7700 hectares gone up in smoke in France
Fanned by this extreme heat, two fires have burned some 7,700 hectares since Tuesday in the south-west of Franceone south of Bordeaux where “the criminal thesis“is now”privileged” and the other in the forest backed by the very touristy Pilat dune.
“Here there were tunnels of fire, you have to imagine a ball of fire“, told AFP Commander Laurent Dellac, who spoke from La Teste-de-Buch. These fires, which mobilize a thousand firefighters, have since Tuesday led to the evacuation of 11,000 people.
It feels like postapocalyptic, really, it’s falling everywhere, on cars, it’s disturbing
“I’ve never seen this and it feels like it’s postapocalyptic, really, it’s falling everywhere, on cars, it’s disturbing“, said Thursday Karyn, a resident of Cazaux, just before the preventive evacuation order of this village near the Dune of Pilat.
Triggered Thursday followingnoon by the passage of a train which would have generated sparks, another fire spread over 1205 hectares (without necessarily consuming them) near Avignon, in the South-East, before being fixed .