Part of Western Europe continued to struggle this weekend once morest devastating forest fires, the result of a heat wave. The heatwave might break several temperature records early next week.
In the south-west of France, the mobilization of firefighters did not weaken to fix the fires, particularly in Gironde where nearly 10,000 hectares of forest have gone up in smoke since Tuesday, in a context of generalized heat wave where temperatures might reach 40°C locally, according to Météo-France, which has placed 38 departments on orange alert.
In the tourist basin of Arcachon, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the efforts made have made it possible to slow the progression of the fire. “This evening, we are at 3200 hectares burned once morest 3150 this morning in La Teste-de-Buch, the perimeter is almost constant but the fire is not absolutely under control”, declared in the evening to the press the deputy -Prefect of Arcachon.
Further inland, the fire continues to progress in two small towns, with now “more than 7000 hectares” burned, according to the authorities. In total, these fires, which mobilize more than a thousand firefighters, have since Tuesday led to the evacuation of more than 14,000 people.
Calm in the Iberian Peninsula
Portugal was experiencing a relative calm, with only one major fire still active on Saturday in the north of the country. This fire seemed to lose intensity at the start of the followingnoon, AFP journalists testified on the spot. If the wooded hill from which escaped white smoke was inaccessible to the firefighters, the action of a fire-fighting helicopter managed at this stage to limit the progression of the flames.
The day before, a water bomber plane which was fighting a forest fire in the region of Guarda (north) crashed, causing the death of the pilot. According to a report from the Portuguese civil protection, the fires of the last week have left two dead and around sixty injured. According to his estimates, these fires have ravaged between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of forest and brush since the start of the heat wave.
In Spain, dozens of fires were still raging from north to south of the country. In the region of Extremadura, bordering Portugal, a section of the A5 motorway, linking Madrid to the Portuguese border, might be reopened to traffic following being closed for more than twelve hours due to an inferno.
In the far south, in Andalusia, a fire near Malaga forced the preventive evacuation of more than 3,000 people, according to the Andalusian emergency services. In Greece, firefighters continued to fight an outbreak that broke out on Friday morning, causing the preventive evacuation of seven villages in a rural area of the prefecture of Rethymno, on the island of Crete.
The Spanish Meteorological Agency kept virtually the whole country under different high temperature alert levels on Saturday, with values above 40oC in many areas and up to 44oC in places. In Portugal, only the southern Algarve region was not on heat alert. In the rest of the country, the Meteorological Institute predicts temperatures on Saturday that can reach 42°C in places.
UK red alert
Further north in Europe, in the UK, a crisis committee made up of British government ministers was due to meet on Saturday following the national weather agency issued the first-ever ‘red’ alert for extreme heat , warning of a ‘risk to life’. The Met Office said in southern England temperatures might top 40C for the first time on Monday or Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the world, extreme temperatures have also caused forest fires, particularly in northern Morocco where one person died and half of the approximately 4,660 hectares affected went up in smoke.
Western Canada is also affected, a fire ravaging since Thursday the region of Lytton, northeast of Vancouver, already devastated last year by a historic heat wave and devastating fires. The fire burned 1,500 hectares of forest and brush, destroying several homes and prompting evacuations.
This heat wave is the second in barely a month in Europe. 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.
/ATS
