Infernos devastate forests as Europe’s temperatures rise again

BARCELONA – Hundreds of firefighters across southern Europe on July 5 battled wildfires that sent residents fleeing their homes in the middle of the night and threatened to disrupt a stage of the Tour de France cycling race, as temperatures rose again in the heatwave-scarred region.

The infernos have devastated more than 19,000ha of land – an area more than twice the size of New York City’s Manhattan – across Portugal, Spain, France and Greece, with temperatures predicted to reach 40 deg C in places.

“We started seeing smoke around 10.30pm, then it kept coming closer and closer. Someone from the town hall knocked on our door around 1am to tell us to leave,” said Charlotte Pignol, 30, who was evacuated from her home in southern France near the city of Perpignan.

“There were fire trucks everywhere, and the smell of smoke was overwhelming,” she said.

The blazes come shortly after a heatwave in June, one of Europe’s worst, during which thousands of excess deaths were registered and which would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.

With the mercury set to rise again in the coming days, the authorities expressed alarm that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.

In Greece, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in Thessaloniki in the north of the country, forcing the authorities to evacuate the surrounding area.

Thick black smoke pouring out of a recycling plant and a neighbouring oil treatment complex spread across Greece’s second city. The authorities warned householders to keep their windows closed because of the risk of poisoning.

In Spain, a fire near the north-eastern Costa Brava coast burned more than 2,200ha in two days and firefighters said their efforts would be “complicated” by rising temperatures and the many “smoking hotspots” within the fire’s perimeter.

In France, more than 700 French firefighters tried to contain a wildfire that threatened July 6’s third stage of the Tour de France cycling race through the Pyrenees.

The fire has burned more than 1,500ha of land on a mountainside at Trevillach, about 70km from where July 6’s cycle race ends.

Government prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe said a decision would be taken July 5 on whether the stage across the Spanish border would go ahead as planned.

Heat alerts

Roads in the region have been closed and the authorities have ordered mayors to open emergency shelters for people who could be forced to flee their homes.

Another 300 French firefighters battled another forest fire in a mountainous district of the south-eastern Drome department.

In Portugal, emergency services said they had controlled “80 per cent” of a wildfire that has devastated some 13,000ha of forest and scrubland in the north of the country.

Elsewhere, major fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub land on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, the authorities said.

Regions across Portugal, Spain and southern France have stepped up heat alerts for the coming days.

On July 6, the latest heatwave was expected to move north, with forecasters saying it could last until next weekend.

Following a two-week surge in temperatures in June, France said there had been more than 2,000 extra deaths than usual in just one week, while Spain and Belgium each reported more than 1,000. AFP