A total of 14,300 hectares (35,000 acres) of land have burned since Monday, with 24,000 people evacuated from the area, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde departments said on Twitter. Authorities have deployed 1,700 firefighters to deal with the fires. A spokesman for the Gironde regional fire and rescue service said 12 firefighters have suffered minor injuries since the start of the operation. In Spain, fires ravaged the central region of Castile and Leon and the northern region of Galicia on Sunday, Reuters reported. Firefighters contained the blaze in Mijas in the southeastern province of Malaga and said people who had been evacuated could return to their homes. Cold temperatures in Portugal worsened a drought that began before the heat wave, according to data from the National Meteorological Institute. About 96% of the mainland was already experiencing severe or extreme drought at the end of June.
“Peak of tension”
The heat wave in Western Europe is expected to peak early this week. Monthly minimum temperature records could be broken across France on Monday, according to the national weather service. Météo-France identified nine locations where the monthly lows look set to be broken, including Rostrenen in Brittany, northwest France, where the record has stood since 1968. Apart from the Gironde, Météo-France has issued a red heat alert for a total of 15 departments in western and southwestern regions, as temperatures are expected to reach up to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday. A further 51 regions have been put on orange alert, including Paris, with residents told to avoid going out between 11am and 9pm local time. “Given the peak of intensity expected for today, the chances are low that the mercury will drop enough before the end of the day” to avoid breaking those records, Météo-France added. Since May, France has seen only eight days where average daily temperatures were below the aggregate summer average. On the remaining 39 days, national daily averages were above average temperatures for this time of year observed between 1991 and 2020, according to Météo-France data. Spain’s meteorological service also issued extreme heat warnings on Sunday, Reuters reported. Temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) were forecast for the northern regions of Aragon, Navarre and La Rioja. The agency said the heat wave would end on Monday, but warned that temperatures would remain “unusually hot”. Almost half of Europe’s territory, including the UK, is “at risk” of drought, European Commission researchers said on Monday. The Joint Research Center highlighted the drought across much of Europe as “critical” as “the winter-spring rainfall deficit… was exacerbated by early heatwaves in May and June”. Water supplies may be “compromised” in the coming months, according to the report.
“Hottest day in UK history”
Elsewhere in Europe, Britain is bracing for the “hottest day in UK history”, according to a senior weather official. On Friday, the Met Office issued its first red warning for “extreme heat” due to high temperatures. Met Office chief executive Penelope Endersby said Monday could well be the “hottest day on record for the UK” but Tuesday was “expected to be even hotter”. “So tomorrow we really see the highest chance of 40 degrees and temperatures above that,” Endersby told BBC radio on Monday. “Even potentially above that, 41 is not out of the cards. We even have some 43s in the model, but hopefully it won’t be that high.” Endersby said while extreme temperatures are not expected after Tuesday, the Met Office will monitor the potential for drought in the coming months. “We’re expecting a big drop in temperatures Wednesday night — down 10 or 12 degrees over the past few days,” he said, adding: “Our attention turns, once we get through those two days, to the drought and when it might we don’t see any rain, and we don’t see any significant rain coming.” Joseph Ataman, Jimmy Hutcheon and Xiaofei Xu reported from Paris. Zahid Mahmood and Sana Noor Haq reported from London. CNN’s Renee Bertini, James Frater and Sharon Braithwaite contributed reporting to this post.
