LEIRIA, Portugal/LONDON –
Hundreds more people were evacuated from their homes as wildfires swept through France, Spain and Portugal on Friday, while authorities in Europe issued health warnings for the heatwave in coming days.
More than 1,000 firefighters, supported by water bomber planes, have battled since Tuesday to control two fires in southwestern France that have been fanned by scorching heat, tinderbox conditions and high winds.
While temperatures dropped somewhat in Portugal, they were still expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in some places, with five districts on red alert and more than 1,000 firefighters battling 17 wildfires, officials said.
In Spain, the environment ministry said it was helping fight 17 forest fires across the country.
Meanwhile, the worst drought in more than 70 years has reduced Italy’s longest river, the Po, to little more than a trickle in places.
Italy declared a state of emergency along the Po, which supports around a third of the country’s agricultural output, after facing the hottest July since 1800, with temperatures expected to rise next week.
Officials are concerned about the effects on people’s health and on health systems already challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic as scorching heat sweeps across the continent, with warnings issued that the worst is yet to come. come in Britain in particular.
The World Meteorological Organization said the heat wave would worsen air quality, especially in towns and cities.
“The stagnant, stable atmosphere acts like a lid to trap atmospheric pollutants, including particulates,” WMO science officer Lorenzo Labrador told a news conference in Geneva.
“This results in a degradation of air quality and adverse health effects, particularly for vulnerable people.”
Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido said Thursday that the health system was facing a “particularly worrying” week due to the heat wave and said some hospitals were overwhelmed.
From July 7 to 13, Portugal recorded an excess of 238 deaths due to the heat wave, the country’s health authority DGS said. Spain recorded 84 excess deaths attributable to extreme temperatures in the first three days of the heat wave, according to the National Epidemiology Center database.
UNITED KINGDOM WARNING
The British meteorologist issued its first “extreme heat” red warning for parts of England on Monday and Tuesday.
“Exceptional, perhaps record, temperatures are likely early next week,” Met Office Chief Meteorologist Paul Gundersen said.
“Nights are also likely to be exceptionally warm, especially in urban areas,” he said. “This is likely to lead to widespread impacts on people and infrastructure.”
The highest recorded temperature in Great Britain was 38.7 C (101.7 F) recorded in Cambridge on 25 July 2019.
Hannah Cloke, a climate expert at Britain’s University of Reading, said the heatwave showed climate change was here and there was an urgent need to adapt.
“We are seeing these problems now and they are going to get worse. We need to do something now,” he told Reuters.
“It’s harder to deal with these kinds of temperatures in the UK because we’re just not used to them.”
IN OTHER PLACES IN EUROPE
In Portugal, the highest temperature on Thursday was recorded in the northern city of Pinhao at 47 C (116.6 F), just below the record.
Raymond Loadwick, 73, a pensioner from Britain who now lives in the Portuguese district of Leiria, had to leave his home with his dog Jackson when flames swept through a hill filled with highly flammable eucalyptus and pine trees on Tuesday.
When he returned a day later, his white house was intact, but the vegetation around it had turned to ash and his fruit trees had burned. Loadwick is afraid fires will happen more often in the future: “You have to be on your guard,” she told Reuters.
In France’s Gironde region, 11,300 people have been evacuated since wildfires broke out around Dune du Pilat and Landiras. Some 7,350 hectares (18,000 acres) of land have been burned. Authorities said the fires had not yet stabilized.
In Spain, forest fires that have been burning in parts of Extremadura, which borders Portugal, and the central region of Castilla y León forced the evacuation of four more small towns late on Thursday and Friday.
The flames now threaten a 16th-century monastery and a national park. Several hundred people have been evacuated since the fires started and 7,500 hectares of forest have been destroyed in the two regions.
In Catalonia, in the northeast, the authorities suspended camping and sports activities in around 275 towns and villages to prevent fire risks and restricted agricultural work with machinery. (Additional reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris, Emma Pinedo and Christina Thykjaer in Madrid, William James in London, and Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Alison Williams; Editing by Frances Kerry and Hugh Lawson)