Temperatures are expected to increase in France on Monday, culminating in a scorching incident affecting Western Europe, causing several wildfires and risking temperature records as far as Great Britain.
This heat wave is the second in barely a month in Europe. The spread of these phenomena is considered a direct result of global warming according to scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency.
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Monday may be one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in France: maximum temperatures will be above 30°C everywhere, and between 38°C and 40°C in most of the country.
“The heat is increasing, and a heat wave is spreading across the country,” warns the Institut Météo-France, which expects many temperatures to break, especially in the west and southwest. “In some areas of the southwest, there will be a thermal catastrophe” that could reach 44 degrees Celsius in some places on Monday, followed by an “extremely hot night.”
The peak of this forty-fifth heat wave recorded in France since 1947 is expected to be on the Atlantic coast, especially in Brittany, which has hitherto been protected by ocean inlets.
As a natural consequence of this heat wave, peaks can appear in air pollution.
In the UK, the National Weather Agency issued the first-ever “red” alert for extreme heat, indicating a “risk to life”. The Met Office warned that mercury could reach 40 degrees Celsius in southern England for the first time on Monday or Tuesday.
The British government was accused, on Sunday, of neglecting the situation, after outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson missed a crisis meeting on the topic in Downing Street, and the Minister of Justice, Dominic Raab, seemed happy to see mercury bypassed for the first time. 40°C in England.
This heat wave that passed through Spain caused casualties there. A 50-year-old man died, Sunday, of heatstroke, with a body temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, in Torrejon de Ardoz, near Madrid, according to emergency services. A 60-year-old road worker had died the day before in the capital from the same causes.
Sunday’s thermometer reached 39°C in Madrid, 39.7°C in Seville (south), and as high as 43.4°C in Don Benito near Badajoz (west).
The heat wave has led to wildfires that have already killed many firefighters and rescuers.
In Spain, about 20 fires are still raging and are still out of control in different parts of the country, from the south to the far northwest in Galicia.
A firefighter was killed in a fire in Lusacio, Zamora province, northwest Spain, on Sunday, local authorities said.
In France, Portugal, Spain and Greece, thousands of hectares of forest were burned, and many residents and tourists were forced to flee their homes.
The situation is critical in southwestern France. The fires that devoured 13,000 hectares of vegetation in the Bordeaux region in six days returned, on Sunday evening, thanks to high winds, which led to new evacuations. According to the firefighters, a total of 16,200 vacationers have had to urgently pack their bags since Tuesday.
Portugal was experiencing a lull: On Sunday, for the first time since July 8, temperatures there did not exceed 40 degrees Celsius, according to the National Meteorological Service (IPMA), after hitting a historic record high for July of 47 degrees Celsius.
However, almost all of the Portuguese territory posed an “extreme”, “very high” or “high” fire risk on Sunday, particularly the central and northern regions. Fires last week killed two people, injured 60 others and destroyed between 12 thousand and 15 thousand hectares, according to the latest reports.
In the Netherlands, the Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) on Sunday announced a national heat plan and smog alert in effect from Monday across the country, predicting temperatures will rise in the next few days, as high as 35 degrees. Monday in the south and reach 38 degrees Celsius in some places on Tuesday.
