European countries battle multiple wildfires as record heat grips continent

Firefighters across Europe struggled against multiple fires Friday as a new wave of record-breaking heat baked a swath of the continent, their task further complicated by exceptionally parched landscapes.

The historic temperatures are linked to human-caused climate change, and are hitting countries more used to long cold seasons and ill-equipped for this sort of heat, with limited air conditioning.

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 Friday.

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.

France also has shut down six nuclear reactors in recent days because of extreme heat and drought - and because a mass of jellyfish washed up outside one power plant on the English Channel coast, utility company EDF said. Large numbers of jellyfish are appearing on many French beaches in connection with unusually warm sea temperatures.

In a statement, the company said the shutdowns had minimal impact on France’s electricity production. It said extreme weather poses no safety risks to the reactors themselves.

In the central English town of Stourbridge, where a huge blaze started Thursday, TV footage showed the fires consuming houses, with many left without roofs as flames burned inside the charred walls. About 20 to 30 homes were completely destroyed, Stourbridge lawmaker Cat Eccles told the BBC.

A woman who was evacuated from her Stourbridge home said police knocked on her door and urged her to leave immediately.

“They thought the fire was changing directions, and they didn’t know which direction it was going in,” Jane Baxter told BBC Radio. “So, it was literally grab what you need and get out.” Simon Tuhill, chief fire officer of West Midlands Fire Service, said an investigation will be launched but the fire was believed to have started in the grassland before spreading to homes nearby.

Nineteen people and six firefighters were hospitalised for smoke inhalation and other injuries from multiple wildfires in the West Midlands region. In nearby Stoke-on-Trent, a 23-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman were arrested Friday on suspicion of arson over a large grass fire that spread quickly.

The Met Office, the official weather agency, said 38.1 degrees Celsius was recorded in west London on Thursday, marking the hottest day of the year. While temperatures cooled slightly on Friday, many parts of the country have seen little to no rain for weeks. This July has been the driest in England and Wales since records began in 1836.

Spanish authorities on Thursday night transferred the remains of three 11th Century kings from a monastery in the northeastern Aragon region near an active wildfire.

The remains were taken to a museum about 80 kilometres south of the 10th-century San Juan de la Pena monastery, which remained unharmed Friday, according to regional authorities.

Paintings, liturgical objects and the clothes of a notable 18th-century Spanish count were among the other items removed from the monastery.

The wildfire was not yet contained midday Friday, with some 800 residents evacuated. Temperatures were expected to cool slightly on Saturday.

A separate, much larger wildfire in southern Spain has burned more than 300 square kilometres in the province of Huelva, also forcing evacuations.

All 1,800 residents of the village of Gey in western Germany were evacuated after a wildfire with shifting winds in the nearby Hurtgen forest threatened to reach their homes. Nearly 300 hectares of forest were ablaze on Friday morning, local authorities said.

Unexploded ordnance from World War II in the forest hampered firefighting efforts, German news agency dpa reported.

The fire advanced to within 300 metres of Gey, which sits on the edge of the forest near the Belgian border. The cause of the blaze remains unknown.

Germany has set a new record for heat-related deaths so far this year, surpassing the 2018 level for the entire year, the Robert Koch Institute said Thursday. An estimated 12,500 people died from heat-related causes between January 1 and August 2.

In Croatia, one person was killed and 14 people were hospitalised, of whom seven remained in life-threatening condition early Friday, from a fire that raged overnight by the coastal town of Omis and forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. The person’s body was found as police combed through the burned-out area.

The fire erupted late Thursday in an Omis suburb and quickly spread because of strong wind. The regional maritime authorities said 194 people, including children, were plucked from the sea and from various boats as they tried to flee the fire.

Firefighters put out the blaze by Friday morning as other crews in planes headed further south toward the Peljesac peninsula, where another wildfire broke out overnight.

Albania has been battling dozens of wildfires in recent weeks, with 11 active fires reported across the country Friday.

The largest fire is in the Gure-Lure area, where the perimetre near residential homes has been brought under control.

Three people have been prosecuted over that fire, which engulfed Lura National Park. They are suspected of failing to take measures to protect the territory from fire, authorities said.

Meanwhile, in northern Greece, more than 300 vacationers and residents were evacuated by sea Thursday after a wildfire swept through a pine forest and threatened seaside homes, authorities said.

Belgium was expecting to hit its highest temperature of the summer on Friday, climbing to 37 degrees Celsius in the capital, Brussels.

The mercury was also set to hit 37 degrees Celsius in the neighbouring Netherlands. The country is suffering from severe drought, with water shortages in some areas, but Dutch authorities have held off declaring a water crisis as rain is expected in the coming days.