Wildfires, record high temperatures across Europe sound climate change alarm

LONDON • Emergency services battled wildfires across swathes of southern Europe amid mass evacuations yesterday, as warnings sounded in London after Britain's hottest day that the fight against climate change needed to be stepped up.

A blaze fuelled by gale-force winds raged in mountains north of the Greek capital Athens, forcing hundreds including hospital patients to evacuate, and similar numbers fled in Italy as gas tanks caught in a forest fire near the Tuscan town of Lucca exploded.

A brutal heatwave settled over southern Europe last week, part of a developing global pattern of rising temperatures - attributed by scientists and climatologists to human activity - that is forecast to dump searing heat onto much of China into late next month.

It is also expected to trigger record power consumption in the central United States - thereby adding to the greenhouse gas emissions that nations across the world have pledged to cut, as homes and businesses crank up air-conditioners to combat soaring temperatures set to last into next week.

While the record heat experienced last week around parts of the Mediterranean has eased, mercury readings have begun heading up again in Portugal and Spain, as well as in Italy.

Portugal's northern region's Civil Protection commander Armando Silva said rising temperatures and strong winds would make it harder to fight the country's largest wildfire, which has burned 10,000ha to 12,000ha since Sunday in and around the municipality of Murca.

In Spain, where emergency crews were tackling fires in five regions, national weather service Aemet also forecast higher temperatures.

Wildfires burned in several areas of Italy and 14 cities, including Rome, Milan and Florence, were due to be put on the country's highest heatwave alert today, up from nine yesterday.

Forecasters there said that temperatures were expected to hit 40 deg C across a swathe of the north and centre this week.

That mark was topped in Britain for the first time on Tuesday, shattering the country's previous temperature record by 1.6 deg C. The chief of science and technology at Britain's Met Office, Mr Stephen Belcher, said that unless greenhouse gas emissions were reduced, the country might experience similar heatwaves every three years.

British Treasury Minister Simon Clarke said Tuesday's "remarkable, unprecedented" record heat served as "a reminder... of the importance of tackling climate change".

Engineers raced yesterday to fix train tracks that had buckled in the heat after firefighters, who in London endured their busiest day since World War II on Tuesday, worked through the night to damp down wildfires.

To the south on the European mainland, major wildfires continued to rage. In Greece, thick clouds of smoke darkened the sky over Mount Penteli, 27km north of Athens, where close to 500 firefighters, 120 fire engines and 15 water-carrying planes tried to contain a blaze that broke out on Tuesday and continued to burn on several fronts. The authorities said they evacuated nine settlements.

Last year, wildfires ravaged about 121,405ha of forest and bushland in different parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heatwave in 30 years.

In Italy, fire crews in the central region of Tuscany battled a wildfire for a third day near the town of Lucca that had destroyed some 560ha of forest, the authorities said. It forced about 500 people to flee as the flames raged through the night, reaching villages and causing some liquefied gas tanks to explode, regional governor Eugenio Giani said on Twitter.

In the north-eastern Friuli Venezia Giulia region, residents were urged to stay indoors because of heavy smoke from a wildfire that started on Tuesday in the Carso area bordering Croatia and Slovenia. The blaze forced state-owned shipbuilder Fincantieri to close down its plant in the port city of Monfalcone, which employs 3,000 people.

In France, where firefighters in the south-western Gironde region have been battling since July 12 to contain huge forest fires, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said more money needed to be invested to tackle such threats. "We are having to confront a quite exceptional situation," he said, referring to damage caused in Brittany and southern France.

REUTERS