Firefighters continued to battle blazes in southern Europe as high temperatures moved north and Britain braced for what could be its hottest day on record.
Expectations are high that on Tuesday the British record of 38.7C could be broken and 40C breached for the first time, with experts blaming climate change and predicting more extreme weather events to come.
Temperatures are also expected to soar above 35C in the Netherlands, while neighboring Belgium is expected to reach 40C and above.
In France, many towns and cities recorded their highest temperatures on Monday, the national weather service said.
The mercury hit 39.3C in Brest on Britain’s Atlantic coast, in the country’s far north-west, breaking the previous record of 35.1C set in 2002.
Saint-Brieuc, on the Channel coast, reached 39.5C, beating the previous record of 38.1C, and the western city of Nantes registered 42C, beating a decade-long peak of 40.3C set in 1949.
Firefighters in southwestern France are still battling in sweltering heat to contain two massive fires that have caused widespread destruction.
For almost a week, armies of firefighters and a flotilla of water-bombing planes have been battling fires that have mobilized much of France’s firefighting capacity.
timeline of the destruction caused by forest fires in France
“It never stops,” said David Bruner, one of 1,500 firefighters battling the Gironde fire, which has since Tuesday destroyed 14,000 hectares of pine forest near the Dune du Pilat, Europe’s highest sand dune and a hot spot for summer tourism. “In 30 years of firefighting, I’ve never seen a fire like this.”
An area 5.5 miles (9 km) long and 5 miles wide was still burning near the dune on Monday, with temperatures in the area forecast to reach 44C.
A total of 8,000 people were evacuated from near the dune on Monday as a precaution as shifting winds blew thick smoke into residential areas, officials said.
“We are refugees from climate change,” Theo Dayan, 26, told Le Monde after fleeing his home near the village of La Teste-de-Buch. Jean-Luc Gleise, head of the local fire service, said: “We don’t reach out and touch global warming – it hits us in the face.”
About 32,000 tourists or locals have been forced to leave their camp in France, many of them in emergency shelters.
Fifteen departments have been placed on the highest level of alert for extreme temperatures, including Brittany, where the coastal city of Brest was set to reach 40C on Monday, almost twice the usual July average.
The European heat wave is the second to hit parts of the south-west of the continent in recent weeks. Meanwhile, European Commission researchers said nearly half (46%) of the EU’s territory was exposed to warning-level drought.
A man dramatically managed to escape from a forest fire in Spain with his clothes on fire – video
Ireland saw temperatures of 33C in Dublin – the highest since 1887 – while in the Netherlands temperatures reached 35.4C in the southern town of Westdorpe. Although this is not a record, higher temperatures are expected there on Tuesday.
Fires in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain destroyed thousands of hectares of land.
A firefighter walks through flames at a fire in Gironde, France. Photo: Philippe Lopez/AP
On Monday evening, French prosecutors in the southwestern city of Bordeaux said a man suspected of starting one of the fires in the region had been detained.
Last week’s extreme temperatures directly killed at least four people in Spain and ignited dozens of wildfires – many of which are still burning – that have burned almost 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) across the country.
A fire burning in the northwestern province of Zamora has claimed the life of a 69-year-old shepherd, regional authorities said. A firefighter died in the same area on Sunday.
Later on Monday, it was reported that an office worker in his fifties had died of heat stroke in Madrid.
Authorities reported about 20 wildfires still raging from the south to Galicia in the far northwest, where flames have destroyed about 4,500 hectares (more than 11,000 acres) of land.
During a visit to the southwestern region of Extremadura on Monday morning, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez paid tribute to Gulón Vara and said the events of the previous week were further evidence of the climate crisis.
“I want to make something very clear,” he said. “Climate change kills: it kills people, as we have seen; it is also killing our ecosystem, our biodiversity and it is also destroying the things that we as a society hold dear – our houses, our businesses, our livestock.”
In neighboring Portugal – where temperatures reached 47C last week – the fires were brought under control after destroying 12,000-15,000 hectares of land, killing two people and injuring 60 others.
“We found the car and these two people, aged around 70, completely burnt,” Murca Mayor Mario Artur López told SIC Noticias television. The victims were from the nearby village of Penabeitse, he added.
Fog from a forest fire near Guarda, Portugal. Photo: Miguel Pereira Da Silva/EPA
Temperatures dropped over the weekend, but the risk of forest fires remains very high, according to the Portuguese Institute of Meteorology (IPMA). More than 1,000 firefighters, supported by 285 vehicles and 14 aircraft, were battling nine wildfires, mainly in the northern regions of the country, authorities said.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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