Heat wave edges higher in Europe

ROME — Intense heat baking Italy pushed northward toward the popular tourist destination of Florence on Friday while wildfires charred the country’s south, and Spain appeared headed for an all-time record high temperature as a heat wave kept southern Europe in a fiery hold.

Italy saw temperatures in places upwards of 40 C (104 F), and Rome broiled. By late afternoon Friday, the heat in Florence reached 39 C (102 F). That city and Bologna also were issued alerts for today by the health ministry.

Giancarlo Penza, of the Rome-based Catholic charity Sant’egidio Community, reminded viewers of state TV that the most vulnerable in such weather are elderly people living alone and the homeless.

“(The latter) are the persons who are invisible, who live on the street,” Penza said. “Knock on the door of an older person” who lives alone, next door, or “stop someone on the street” without a home and ask if they need help, he urged Italians.

Many southern European countries have suffered days of intense heat, accompanied by deadly wildfires in Algeria, Turkey, Italy and Greece.

While the area is known for its sunny, hot summers, scientists voice little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires. Such hardships are likely to happen more frequently as Earth continues to warm, they say.