Firefighters across France and in central England struggled against multiple fires on Friday as a new wave of record-breaking heat baked a swath of Europe, their task further complicated by exceptionally parched landscapes.
With France experiencing its driest year ever, a new fire raced through woodlands overnight in the Landes region on the southwest coast. The blaze forced more than 500 people to evacuate their homes in the town of Luglon as hundreds of firefighters deployed to the area, the regional administration said on Friday.
The Landes prefecture said the fire, which started on Thursday, had spread across 1,100 hectares, while no homes had been affected so far.
The prefect told reporters that the fire had slowed, although the next 15 hours would be decisive.
It’s one of several fires scorching forests around France this week, including in normally cooler and wetter regions in the north and Brittany. A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux last month and pushed a quarter of a million people from their homes.
In the northwestern Ille-et-Vilaine department, another fire in the municipality of Saint-Just prompted the deployment of more than 300 firefighters.
Meteo-France placed four departments — Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Mayenne and Deux-Sevres — under red alert for a “very high” risk of wildfires.
Meanwhile, 57 departments remained under orange alert for a “high” wildfire risk.
After the UK recorded its hottest day of the year, wildfires raced across the West Midlands and saw several houses burned to the ground. They have been “one of the most significant” incidents the region’s fire service has ever dealt with, chief fire officer Simon Tuhill said.
Some 1,017 wildfires have been recorded in England and Wales this year, according to data from the National Fire Chiefs Council.
The fires came on the hottest day of the year, when temperatures reached 38.1°C in west London.
In France, temperatures on Thursday approached 41°C in several areas, from Aquitaine in the southwest to the Rhone River valley in the east, according to the national weather service. They were forecast to reach similar levels on Friday before dropping over the weekend.
The historic temperatures are linked to climate crisis, and are hitting countries more designed for long cold seasons and ill-equipped for this sort of heat, with limited air conditioning.
In northern Greece, more than 300 vacationers and residents were evacuated by sea on Thursday after a wildfire swept through a pine forest and threatened seaside homes, authorities said.
