Wildfires ravage countryside in France, Spain and Portugal in ‘apocalypse’ of heat
ALMOST half of the EU is at risk of drought, it was warned yesterday, as France, Portugal and Spain battled wildfires in an “apocalypse” of extreme heat blamed on climate change.
Some 46 per cent of the EU is exposed to warning-level drought, and 11 per cent is at the higher alert level, with crops already suffering from the lack of water, according to a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
It came as the charred bodies of an elderly couple in their 80s were found inside a burnt-out vehicle that crashed as they tried to escape a wildfire ripping across the Portuguese northern municipality of Murça. “The couple died inside the car,” Murça’s mayor, Mário Artur Lopes, told local SIC broadcaster. “More than half of the municipality is on fire.”
Most of Portugal remained on high alert for wildfires yesterday despite a slight drop in temperatures from Thursday’s record for July of 47C (117F). Fires there have injured around 60 and destroyed up to 37,000 acres of land.
Spain was yesterday facing the eighth and last day of a heatwave which caused more than 510 heat-related deaths. Daniel Muñoz Varas, a fireman aged 62, died from burns on Sunday after getting trapped while battling a blaze in the north-western region of Zamora. The body of a 69-year-old sheep farmer was found yesterday in the same area.
Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, linked the deaths to global warming, saying “climate change kills”.
The heat was forecast to ease today but temperatures will rise again tomorrow, especially in Extremadura.
In France, firefighters were facing “extreme and exceptional circumstances” as another 15,000 people were told to leave their homes as a precaution when winds changed direction.
More than 31,000 people have been forced out of their homes in the Gironde region.