PARIS/LISBONNE (Reuters) – Wildfires ravaged parts of southwestern France and Spain on Saturday, forcing thousands to flee their homes as eastern Europe faces an intense heat wave.
In France, around 14,000 people were evacuated on Saturday afternoon in Gironde, where 1,200 firefighters are battling the flames, regional authorities said in a statement.
“We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not fixed,” said Vincent Ferrier, sub-prefect of Langon in Gironde, during a press conference.
In recent weeks, major forest fires have broken out in France and other European countries, including Portugal and Spain. More than 10,000 hectares were on fire in Gironde on Saturday, against 7,300 hectares the day before.
At the same time, 38 French departments have been put on “orange” alert, the inhabitants of these areas being urged to be vigilant. The heat wave in western France is expected to peak on Monday, with temperatures exceeding 40C.
In Spain, firefighters were fighting a series of fires on Saturday after a period of heat wave where temperatures rose to 45.7C.
The heat wave, which has lasted for almost a week, has caused 360 deaths, according to the Carlos III Health Institute.
More than 3,000 people have been evacuated from their homes due to a major forest fire near Mijas, a town in the province of Malaga caught by tourists from northern Europe, the region’s emergency services said on Saturday. in a tweet.
Some people took refuge in a sports center in the province.
“The police arrived at all screaming sirens and everyone was ordered to leave. We had to leave. No one told us where to go,” said retired British John Pretty, 83.
“It’s scary (…) because you don’t know what’s going on,” said Jean-Marie Vandelanotte, 68, of Belgian nationality.
Elsewhere in Spain, plumes of black smoke rose near Casas de Miravete, in Extremadura, where helicopters dropped water on flames that destroyed 3,000 hectares and led to the evacuation of two villages.
Fires also broke out in Castile and Lon (Center) and Galicia (North).
EXTREME HEAT ALERT IN GREAT BRITAIN
In Portugal, temperatures dropped across most of the country on Saturday after hitting 40C in recent days.
“We had big fires and we don’t want them to reactivate again (…) We will remain extremely vigilant this weekend,” the commander of the Emergency and Civil Protection Authority told the press. , André Fernandes.
In total, 39,550 hectares of forest were ravaged by the flames between the beginning of the year and mid-June, more than triple the amount during the same period last year, according to data from the Institute for the conservation nature and forests.
Portugal’s health minister said 238 people died from the heatwave between July 7 and July 13, most of them elderly.
On the other side of the Mediterranean, fires have ravaged more than 2,000 hectares of forest in northern Morocco (Larache, Ouazzane, Taza and Ttouane), killing at least one person, local authorities announced.
More than 1,000 families were evacuated and planes carrying water helped put out most of the fires on Friday night.
In Great Britain, the weather services issued a red alert “extreme heat” in certain areas of England for the days of Monday and Tuesday.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Britain is 38.7C, Cambridge on July 25, 2019.
(Report by Layli Faroudi Paris, Sergio Gonclaves Lisbon, Mariano Valladolid and Jon Nazca Malaga, Ahmed Eljechtimi Rabat, Jessica Jones and Michael Holden in London)