Infernos devastate forests as Europe’s temperatures rise again

BARCELONA - Hundreds of firefighters battled forest infernos in France, Spain and Portugal on July 5 as temperatures rose again in heatwave-scarred Europe.

The latest wildfires have already devastated more than 17,000 hectares of land – twice the size of New York City’s Manhattan – across the three countries where temperatures in some places were predicted to touch 40 deg C on July 5.

The authorities registered thousands of excess deaths during one of Europe’s worst heatwaves in June, and, with more extreme weather on the way, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has already expressed concern that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.

A fire near Spain’s north-eastern Costa Brava coast burned more than 2,200 hectares in two days and firefighters said their operation on July 5 would be “complicated” by rising temperatures and the many “smoking hot spots” within the fire’s perimeter.

Firefighters “worked tirelessly throughout the night to consolidate the perimeter of the La Bisbal d’Emporda forest fire, which is now stabilised,” said a Catalunya fire service statement.

Catalunya Regional Government President Salvador Illa said that a man had been detained in connection with the fire, which has badly hit the Gavarres protected natural area between Barcelona and the French border.

Nearly 600 French firefighters have been mobilised to contain a wildfire that has burned more than 1,000 hectares on a mountainside at Trevillach, about 36km east of Perpignan.

Roads in the region have been closed and the authorities have ordered mayors to open emergency shelters for people who could be forced to flee their homes.

Another 300 French firefighters battled another forest fire in a mountainous district of the south-eastern Drome department.

In Portugal, emergency services said they had controlled “80 per cent” of a wildfire that has devastated some 13,000 hectares of forest and scrub land in the north of the country.

A senior civil protection officer Jose Costa told AFP news agency that the fire had spread 35km since it started on July 2 and that 1,200 firefighters had been involved in the battle.

Spain and Italy sent reinforcements and water-carrying planes after Portugal appealed for help to fight the inferno that has left nine people injured by burns.

Several regions across Portugal, Spain and southern France stepped up heat alerts on July 5 as temperatures rose again. On July 6, the latest heatwave was expected to move north. Forecasters say it could last until next weekend.

Western Europe has already seen heatwaves in May and June that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.

Following a two-week surge in temperatures in June, France said there had been more than 2,000 extra deaths than usual in just one week, while Spain and Belgium each reported more than 1,000.

The authorities in several countries fear more summer trouble ahead.

“Climate change is here; we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July,” said French fire service Colonel Eric Belgioino as he made an appeal for people near the Pyrenees inferno to take precautions to avoid starting fires.

“The season is going to be long for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us,” he said. AFP