France on high alert as forest fires rage, heatwave temperatures soar
Thousands more people were being evacuated from their homes in southwestern France on Monday as a wildfire continued to rage in the region, local officials said. Weather forecasters have put 15 departments on the highest state of alert for extreme temperatures, with a peak expected on Tuesday.
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Firefighters have been unable to control the blaze near the Dune de Pilat, Europe's highest sand dune and a summer tourism hotspot, where rapidly changing winds have increased the risk of it spreading to residential areas which found themselves under clouds of poisonous smoke, they said.
"The smoke is toxic," firefighter spokesman Arnaud Mendousse told AFP. "Protecting the population is a matter of public health."
Some 5,000 people were evacuated from Les Miquelots, a southern neighbourhood of the town of Teste-de-Buch, with another 3,000 told to leave Pyla-sur-mer, to the east.
The blaze is one of two huge wildfires raging since early last week in the Girdonde region south of Bordeaux as parts of France are sweltering under record temperatures.
The heatwave is the second to engulf parts of south-west Europe in weeks, and blazes burning in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have destroyed thousands of hectares of woodland and forced thousands of residents and holidaymakers to flee.
At 3pm on Monday, several temperature records had been broken around France: 39.2°C in Brest-Guipavas (Finistère), 40.5°C in Nantes and 41.7°C Biscarrosse (Landes).
France's interior ministry announced it would send an extra three firefighting planes, 200 firefighters and more trucks to the worst affected areas.
In some parts of south-western France, there will be "a heat apocalypse," meteorologist Francois Gourand told the AFP news agency.
A pan-European experience
Meanwhile in Spain, firefighters managed to stabilise a wildfire that ravaged 2,000 hectares of woods and bushes in the southern region of Andalusia.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is due to visit the hard-hit eastern region of Extremadura on Monday where various fires have been raging for days.
In Portugal, almost the entire country remained on high alert for wildfires despite a slight drop in temperatures from the 47°C reached on Thursday.
Only one major fire was burning on Sunday in the north.
The fires have killed two, injured around 60 and destroyed between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of land in Portugal.
In the United Kingdom, the weather office issued a first-ever "red" warning for extreme heat, cautioning there was a "risk to life".
The Met Office said temperatures in southern England could exceed 40°C on Monday or Tuesday for the first time, leading some schools to say they would stay closed next week.
Temperatures of 38°C are forecast in parts of the Netherlands on Tuesday.
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