World on fire: abnormal heat and fires in Europe and the USA beat all records

Prosecutors said a man suspected of arson that destroyed 13 hectares of pine forest in France was questioned over a similar alleged crime a decade ago when heatwaves broke temperature records across Europe. TheGuardian.

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A mass of cooler air on July 19 brought relief to France's Atlantic coast after 63 communes set new temperature records, but firefighters fought huge fires in the southwest even as the heat wave moved north and east.

The western city of Nantes recorded 18°C on 42 July, beating the previous high of 40,3°C set in 1949, while the northwestern port of Brest reached 39,9°C, beating the 2002 record in 35,1°C.

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Several night-time temperature records have also been set, including at La Gaga in Normandy, where 3°C was recorded at 19am on July 32,8. Officials said the entire western coast of France was affected, from Landes in the south to Finistère in the north.

The wildest fires were in the southwestern department of the Gironde, where fire brigades struggled to contain fires that lasted two weeks in La Teste-de-Buch and Landiras, as well as a third fire in Vinsac that broke out on July 18 at night.

Prosecutors in Bordeaux said a motorist told investigators that he saw a car moving away from where the Landiras fire started on 12 July and tried but failed to put out the flames. Investigators found traces of arson.

The 39-year-old man, who was questioned on July 19, lives in the Gironde and was questioned in 2012 on suspicion of starting a forest fire, officials said. The investigation was dropped in 2014 due to lack of evidence, they added.

Elsewhere, the UK record was broken at London's Heathrow Airport, where temperatures reached 40,2°C shortly after lunch on 19 July. The head of the UN meteorological agency expressed hope that the heat wave would serve as a "wake-up call" for governments.

In Luton, one of London's airports, part of the runway almost melted, the flight schedule was disrupted. Large sections of railway lines in the south of the country also suffered from high temperatures.

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Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, said: "I hope that in democracies, too, events of this kind will influence voter behavior."

Meteorologists said on July 19 that a mass of hot air - the second to cover the continent in recent weeks - has begun moving into eastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, with temperatures approaching 40°C.

Dutch meteorological service KNMI said temperatures could top 39°C, issuing an orange-colored extreme weather warning for the center and south of the Netherlands, while Belgium issued the highest alert as weather forecasters predicted temperatures of 40°C and higher.

Major state museums in Brussels took the unusual step of giving people over 65 free access to help cool them off, while workers in Amsterdam poured water on mechanical canal bridges to prevent expanding metal from jamming them.

In Germany, two firefighters were injured while extinguishing a forest fire in Saxony. The weather raised fears of drought and a German farmers' association warned of the risk of "major losses" in food production.

When the European Commission announced that drought warnings were in place for 46% of the bloc and 11% were at risk, wildfires in France, Spain and Portugal continued to devastate dry forests and moorlands.

About 2000 firefighters are fighting three fires in France. More than 37 people were evacuated from the region, including 16 on July 18 alone.

Patrick Dave, mayor of La Teste-de-Buch, said: “This is heartbreaking. Economically, it will be very difficult for them and very difficult for the city because we are a tourist city and we need a tourist season.”

Five campsites from which 6000 campers were evacuated last week near Dune Pilate, Europe's highest sand dune, were "nearly 90% destroyed", according to a local government spokesman.

A 9km long, 8km wide section was still burning near the dune and the fire had "blown everything up" such was its ferocity, said Mark Vermeulen, head of the local fire service. “Trunks of 40-year-old pine trees are bursting,” he said.

Elsewhere in France, a fire that started last week near Avignon in the southeast resurfaced on July 18, local firefighters said, while a separate fire broke out in Brittany.

So far, no deaths have been reported in France, but in Spain, where more than a dozen fires continued to rage on July 19, a blaze in the northwestern province of Zamora claimed the life of a 69-year-old shepherd. On July 17, a firefighter died in the same area.

On July 18, it became known that a man in his 50s died from heatstroke in Madrid. Rail service between Madrid and Galicia in the northwest remained suspended due to fires on both sides of the tracks.

Near the northern city of Tabara, a wildfire swept through a field, engulfing an excavator and forcing a driver who was trying to dig a firebreak to run for his life as the flames burned the clothes off his back. He was airlifted to the hospital.

In Portugal, 1400 firefighters fought 10 forest fires in the north. The death toll from the fires doubled to four on July 18 after a car carrying two people went off the road trying to avoid a fire in Vila Real to the north, officials said.

Sixty people were injured in the fires that lasted more than a week in Portugal. “We found the car and these two people, around the age of 70, completely burnt out,” said Mursa Mayor Mario Artur Lopez.

In total, about a thousand people died from the heat of recent weeks in Spain and Portugal. Tens of thousands of people across Europe are forced to leave their homes.

In Athens, huge plumes of thick, acrid smoke filled the sky late on July 19 as a forest fire fanned by gale-force winds ripped apart Mount Pendeli. The Greek Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection ordered residents of the Ntrafi area to leave their homes while firefighters on the ground and in the air fought the blaze.

The country's Open TV channel showed footage of the fire engulfing homes and incinerating cars left in garages as people fled the scene. According to eyewitnesses, the fire moved at lightning speed across Pendeli.

The high temperatures themselves would not have been so devastating if it were not for the wind and the total lack of precipitation, forecasters say.
In general, they remind, since the beginning of the industrial era, the average temperature of the planet has risen by 1,1 ° C, reports with the BBC.

Heat waves hit the continents more often, last longer, and temperatures are getting higher from time to time.

Over the past week, dozens of temperature records have been set in the southern and central parts of the United States.

Unprecedented heat has covered the states of Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. On July 15, high temperatures threatened the health and lives of 22 million Americans, or 7% of the country's population. In the coming weeks, 40-degree heat is expected in the south and west of the country. Several hundred Americans die from it every year.

In total, about 84 major fires are blazing in the United States, which have already destroyed 1,2 million hectares of land. In addition to Texas, Arizona and Utah, Alaska has the largest number of fires. This is reported Rambler.

Experts blame climate change for the current heat waves and note that more frequent extreme weather will only get worse, posing an even greater threat to lives and livelihoods for at least the next 30 years.

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