A part of Western Europe was suffocated on Saturday by a heat wave that has caused devastating fires and threatens to cause record temperatures this weekend and the beginning of the next.
The fires were especially worrying in Spain, where a major highway linking Madrid with the Portuguese border was cut off for more than twelve hours by a fire burning in the Extremadura region (southwest).
“Completely open to traffic” the A5, the Extremaduran emergency services announced on Twitter on Saturday afternoon, when the danger dissipated.
After a complicated night, the hundreds of firefighters and ground and air media managed to “stabilize” that fire in Extremadura, which threatened the Monfragüe National Park, a natural area protected for its biodiversity, said Nieves Villar, general director of Civil Protection of Estremadura.
Dozens of fires continued to burn this Saturday in Spain, under a heat wave with extreme temperatures for almost a weekone of the most worrying in the Sierra de Mijas (Andalusia, south), which forced the preventive eviction of more than 3,000 people, although 300 were able to return to their homes in the afternoon, according to local authorities.
Fires in Portugal, France, Greece
After difficult days, the situation in Portugal improved this Saturday, with only one major active fire, in the north of the country, between the districts of Baiao and Amarante.
“We anticipate having this fire contained during the day,” declared the commander of Civil Protection, André Fernandes.
AFP journalists confirmed a lower intensity of the flames on Saturday afternoon.
The day before, a pilot of a firefighting plane that crashed in the Guarda region (north) died.
According to Civil Protection, the fires have left at least two dead and sixty injured in recent weeks and the flames have burned between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares.
In the south of France, firefighters continued to battle several fires, particularly in the Gironde department, where almost 10,000 hectares of forest have been engulfed in flames since Tuesday, under a heat wave that could push temperatures to 40 °C in some points, according to the Météo-France agency.
Efforts paid off in Teste-de-Buch, where the fire has been contained but remains “not under control,” Arcachon sub-prefect Ronan Léaustic told reporters.
The fires in this area of France, which have mobilized more than a thousand firefighters, have preventively kept 12,000 people out of their homes since Tuesday.
In Greece, firefighters were fighting a fire that broke out on Friday on the island of Crete, where seven rural towns were evacuated.
UK prepares for the worst
Although the peak of the heat wave seemed to have passed in Spain, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) warned that it will only be Monday when the temperatures drop a little, which this Saturday continued above 41 ºC in the center, south and southwest from the country.
In Portugal, only the southern region of the Algarve was saved from being under a heat alert. In other parts of the country 42 ºC were expected.
Further north in Europe, in the UK, a crisis committee made up of government ministers is due to meet this Saturday after the national weather agency issued the first “red alert” for extreme heat, warning of a “risk to life”. “.
The Met Office predicts that in the south of England temperatures can reach between Monday and Tuesday for the first time 40 ° Cbeating the country’s record of 38.7°C dating from 2019.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has advised Londoners not to use public transport except in cases of absolute necessity and some schools have announced they will remain closed in the south of England as long as temperatures remain so high.
This is the second heat wave to hit Europe in less than a month, phenomena that are becoming more frequent and intense fueled by climate change, according to scientists.
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