MADRID, Aug. 14 — Record heatwaves have turned Europe into a sweltering sauna above 40 degrees Celsius as raging wildfires sweep many countries on high alert.
The extreme summer heat has created favorable conditions for rampant wildfires, which have already killed several people, displaced thousands and forced firefighters to battle blazes across large parts of Europe.
In France, a heatwave broke temperature records in the southwest, with maximums up to 12 degrees Celsius above normal, before spreading to the center-east and northeast of the country.
“Often remarkable, even unprecedented maximum temperatures, often 12 degrees above normal levels, were reached this Monday,” Meteo France said Tuesday in a press release.
The intense heat, combined with dry winds and rare rainfall, has created ideal conditions for fueling wildfires, which have erupted across southern Europe and the Balkans.
In Croatia, air temperature records were set in Sibenik, at 39.5 degrees, and Dubrovnik, at 38.9 degrees, while large forest fires raged along its coasts and ripped through neighboring countries in the Balkans.
In Spain, for example, a lightning-sparked wildfire near Madrid killed one man, forced hundreds of residents to evacuate, and scorched about 1,000 hectares of land, while a second fire in the southern resort town of Tarifa prompted around 2,000 people to flee, and additional blazes in Zamora and Castilla y Leon forced hundreds more to leave.
A fire map published on the website of national broadcaster RTVE shows widespread fire activities across the country, with orange and red indicators marking both active fires and affected zones.
Authorities are requesting help from European partners as Spain faces its 10th consecutive day of a record-breaking heatwave, with temperatures peaking at 45 degrees.
The country is ready to seek more help from European allies, such as more firefighters, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska was quoted by local media Cadena SER as saying on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, wildfires continue to scorch northern Portugal, with more than 1,300 firefighters and 16 aircraft busy battling flames, one of which has been burning for 10 days.
Large fires have also been roaring in northwestern Türkiye, Albania and Montenegro, where thick smoke blankets several towns.
In Albania, one man died, while a Montenegrin soldier was killed during firefighting operations, and in Greece, wildfires have prompted emergency evacuations at multiple tourist destinations.
Meteorologists attribute the extreme heat to a large high-pressure system drawing warm, dry air over the continent and expected to persist through at least Monday in many areas.
According to data from the European Union (EU)-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, as the planet continues to warm, not all regions are heating up at the same pace, with Europe warming at a speed more than twice the global average since the 1980s.
The EU’s climate monitoring agency links this accelerated warming to shifts in weather patterns, lower levels of air pollution and Europe’s geographic features, including areas that stretch into the Arctic, the planet’s quickest-heating region.
High heat kills tens of thousands of people in Europe every year. Researchers estimate that dangerous heatwaves in Europe will kill 8,000 to 80,000 more people a year by the end of the century as the lives lost to stronger heat outpace those saved from milder winters.
“This summer, like every summer now, has been exceptional in terms of extreme heat around the world,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. (Xinhua)
