Europe’s summer of extremes is flaring up again, with hundreds of firefighters racing to contain fast-moving forest infernos in France, Spain and Portugal as temperatures climb back toward dangerous highs.
The new outbreaks have already scorched more than 42,000 acres — about twice the size of Manhattan — across the three countries, where forecasts in some areas put today’s temperatures close to 40C.
After one of Europe’s most punishing heatwaves in June brought thousands of excess deaths, officials are bracing for more severe weather. France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has warned the annual summer wildfire season appears to have arrived a month early.
In Spain, a blaze near the northeastern Costa Brava coast has burned more than 5,400 acres in just two days. Firefighters said today’s work would be “complicated” by rising temperatures and the many “smoking hotspots” still scattered inside the fire’s perimeter.
Firefighters “worked tirelessly throughout the night to consolidate the perimeter of the La Bisbal d’Empordà forest fire, which is now stabilised,” the Catalunya fire service said in a statement.
Catalunya’s regional government president, Salvador Illa, said a man had been detained in connection with the fire, which has badly affected the Gavarres protected natural area between Barcelona and the French border.
Across the border in France, nearly 600 firefighters have been deployed to rein in a wildfire that has burned more than 2,400 acres on a mountainside at Trevillach, about 36km east of Perpignan.
A forest fire in Cruilles-Sant Sadurni de l’Heura in Spain
More trouble ahead
Authorities have shut roads in the area and instructed mayors to open emergency shelters for residents who may be forced to evacuate if conditions worsen.
Elsewhere in France, another 300 firefighters were battling a separate forest fire in a mountainous part of the southeastern Drome department.
In Portugal, emergency services reported they had brought “80%” of a major wildfire under control after it devastated about 13,000 hectares of forest and scrubland in the north of the country.
Senior civil protection officer Jose Costa told AFP the fire had advanced 35km since it began on Thursday, and that 1,200 firefighters had been drawn into the fight.
Spain and Italy dispatched reinforcements and water-carrying aircraft after Portugal appealed for assistance as the inferno left nine people suffering burn injuries.
With heat building again, several regions in Portugal, Spain and southern France raised heat alerts today. Forecasters said the latest heatwave is expected to push north tomorrow and could persist until next weekend.
Western Europe has already endured heatwaves in May and June that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to the World Weather Attribution network of scientists.
After a two-week spell of surging temperatures in June, France reported more than 2,000 extra deaths than normal in a single week. Spain and Belgium each recorded more than 1,000.
Across the region, governments and emergency agencies now fear a volatile summer still lies ahead.
“Climate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July,” said French fire service Colonel Eric Belgioino, urging people near the Pyrenees fire zone to take precautions to avoid sparking new blazes.
“The season is going to be long for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us,” he said.
