Fires rage as hotspots headed for 48C

Forest fires raged in Portugal yesterday, French nuclear reactors were shut down and police dogs in Switzerland were given protective shoes as Europe’s heatwave peaked with temperatures edging close to the continental record of 48C.

About 800 firefighters and 12 aircraft were striving to contain fires that consumed 1,000 hectares of land in southern Portugal, where more than 100 people were moved to safety from villages near Monchique.

‘‘It’s a terrible situation and considering the weather conditions it will not get better today,’’ the civil protection commander, Colonel Manuel Cordeiro, said. The fires, driven by hot air currents from Africa, follow Portugal’s worst wildfires on record last year, which killed 114. This time, the authorities were better prepared and ordered evacuations rapidly before flames turned buildings into blackened shells.

Temperatures were expected to hit 45C yesterday, close to the 46.8C recorded on Saturday in Alvega, 150km north of Lisbon. The national record is 47.3C, registered in the southern village of Amareleja in 2003. In Lisbon, tourists abandoned the streets as the city broke a 37-year record with 44C on Sun day.

‘‘That’s two degrees more than the previous high – concrete evidence that temperatures are rising,’’ Luca Mercalli, head of the Italian meteorological society, said.

As experts warn that climate change will make searing summers a more regular occurrence, fires have swept Europe this year.

In France the authorities warned people to avoid the example of an elderly man in Lyons who suffered heart problems after insisting on mowing his lawn under the afternoon sun.

France has shut down four nuclear plants over fears that river water diverted to cool down reactors and then channelled back into water courses will be so hot it will kill the fish. - The Times