Forest fires raged in southwestern France and Spain on Saturday, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes as soaring temperatures put authorities on alert in parts of Europe.
The regional authorities indicated, in a statement, that more than 12,200 had been evacuated from the French Gironde region by Saturday morning; More than 1,000 firefighters are struggling to control the flames.
“We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not stabilized,” Vice Mayor Vincent Ferrier told a news conference.
Forest fires have swept France in recent weeks as well as other European countries including Portugal and Spain, with nearly 100 square kilometers of land burning in the Gironde region on Saturday, up from 73 square kilometers on Friday.
In neighboring Spain, firefighters struggled to put out a series of fires on Saturday, following days of unusually high temperatures; It reached 45.7 degrees Celsius.
The heat wave, which lasted for nearly a week, caused the death of 360 people due to the heat, according to figures issued by the Carlos III Institute of Health.
The emergency services of Mijas said in a tweet in the early hours of Saturday morning that more than 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the area due to a large forest fire near the town in Malaga province, a popular destination for European tourists.
Elsewhere in Spain, parts of the Extremadura region, near the Portuguese border, caught fire; Members of the Spanish Military Emergency Unit were deployed to help fight the flames, and in the center of the Castile and Leon region.
A total of 98,000 acres were destroyed by wildfires from the start of the year through mid-June, more than three times the area burned in the same period last year, according to data from the Institute for Nature and Forestry Conservation. An area roughly two-thirds of that area burned during last week’s fires.
The Portuguese Ministry of Health said that 238 people died as a result of the heat wave between 7 and 13 July, most of them elderly people suffering from chronic diseases.
In Britain, the National Weather Service issued the first red alert of “extreme heat” for parts of England on Monday and Tuesday.
With record temperatures expected, the government’s emergency response committee is scheduled to meet later on Saturday.
The highest temperature in Britain was recorded in Cambridge on 25 July 2019 at 38.7 degrees Celsius.
Paris, Lisbon – Archyde.com
