In the midst of a heatwave that is showing no signs of abating, thousands of firefighters are battling wildfires in Portugal, Spain, and southwestern France.
A pilot died in northern Portugal when his waterbombing plane crashed near the Spanish border in the Foz Coa area.
Fires are raging in France’s Gironde region, forcing the evacuation of over 12,000 people.
Around 2,300 people were forced to flee a wildfire in the Mijas hills in southern Spain, near the Costa del Sol.
Visitors to Torremolinos’ beach saw large plumes of smoke rising from the hills, where several aircraft were battling the blaze.
Meanwhile, one local called the forest fires near France’s south-west Atlantic coast “post-apocalyptic.” “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Karyn, who lives near Teste-de-Buch, told AFP.
The fires there, as well as another just south of Bordeaux, have destroyed nearly 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres). Approximately 3,000 firefighters are battling the fires.
Temperatures in Portugal have reached 47 degrees Celsius and above 40 degrees Celsius in Spain since Tuesday, leaving the countryside parched and fueling the fires. According to Spain’s Efe news agency, more than 300 people have died as a result of the heat in both countries.
The areas of Portugal most prone to fire are to the north and east of Porto. This year, fires have destroyed 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of land, which is the largest area since the devastating fires that struck Portugal in the summer of 2017 and resulted in about 100 fatalities.
The Mediterranean is also affected in other areas. The government of Italy has declared a state of emergency in the parched Po Valley, where the longest river in the nation is at times barely a trickle.
In Greece, firefighters are battling fires near Feriza, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south-east of Athens, and near Rethymno, on Crete’s north coast. Seven villages in the vicinity of Rethymno have been evacuated.
Several villages in northern Morocco had to be evacuated as fires raged through the provinces of Larache, Ouezzane, Taza, and Tetouan. In the Ksar El Kebir area, one village was completely destroyed, and at least one person was killed in a fire.
France has also experienced scorching temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius, with 16 departments on orange alert for severe weather.
The head of France’s firefighters’ federation has issued a warning about the impact of global warming on civil protection. “On a daily basis, firefighters and civil security deal with the effects – and these effects aren’t in 2030, they’re right now,” said Grégory Allione.
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Because of human-caused climate change, heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer. The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the beginning of the industrial era, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments around the world drastically reduce carbon emissions.
