France and Spain hit by fires; UK breaks temperature record

Much of Western Europe continues to be hit by a ferocious heat wave that is now heading north and has generated, along with the constant changes in wind, a succession of forest fires that have burned thousands of hectares and forced the evacuation of dozens of people. thousands of people, especially in Spain and France.

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom they experience their hottest day for the first time in their history with a temperature that reached its maximum point of 40.2 °C. The British Meteorological Office (Met, in English) said that the provisional record, which still needs to be confirmed, was generated at 12:50 pm (local time) at London’s Heathrow airport, surpassing the previous record of 38, 7°C in 2019.

Representatives of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) analyze in Geneva the causes that have caused the current situation with record temperatures and its consequences on health. Balance of what happens in these three countries in the face of the suffocating heat wave:

More than 19,000 hectares of forest burned in Gironde

For a week the fires in the Gironde departmentin the southwest of France, they could not be extinguished. Since then, nearly 19,370 hectares of forest have been reduced to ashes, one of the worst balances in the country for 30 years.

During these days of suffocating heat, more than 37,000 people have been evacuated. The Prefecture (Government delegation) of Gironde, located in its capital, Bordeaux, which was covered by a cloud of smoke early on Tuesday due to changes in wind direction, indicated that the night (Monday) was “very difficult” and that a nursing home was evacuated in Pilat, next to La Teste de Buch, where 6,500 hectares have already been burned.

The other focus is Landiras, where no new evacuations had to be carried out on Monday night, but the flames have continued their progress. The balance until this Tuesday, July 19 in the morning is 12,800 hectares burned, according to the Prefecture. For this fire, a man has been detained since Monday as allegedly responsible for having been the one who started the fire.

“The idea that comes to my mind is that it is a monster,” said Jean-Luc Gleyze, president of the Gironde department. “It’s a monster like an octopus and it’s growing and growing on the front, on the back, on both sides. Because of the temperature, because of the wind, because of the lack of water in the air… it’s a monster and it’s very difficult fight it”.

A third fire was added to the popular Gironde tourist region. Is about Vensacnorth of Bordeaux, causing the evacuation of 500 people in the last few hours and 70 hectares destroyed at the moment.

More than 2,000 firefighters are working throughout the department, supported by aerial means, to try to control the flames fueled by the extreme temperatures of recent days and by the constant changes in wind.

Further north, in the region of Brittany, the extreme heat was anchored on Monday and led to historical temperature records with 39.2 ° C in the port of Brest, 40.5 ° C in its capital, Rennes. 1,300 hectares have been destroyed and 470 people have been evacuated.

The heat wave this Tuesday moves from the west to the east and north of France where the highest temperatures are expected: up to 41 ° C in Paris, 39 in Lille or Metz and 38 in Strasbourg or Lyon.

The French meteorological service, Météo France, withdrew the red alert from 15 departments on the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, but 73 remain on orange alert.

Spain says goodbye, for a few days, to the strong heat wave

Spain, like France, has been fighting for a week against the raging forest fires, the most serious in recent years, also fueled by the wind and high temperatures that have left almost 70,000 hectares burned and more than 8,000 evicted by the wave of fires.

According to the Spanish newspaper ‘El País’, half of it is damage caused by the fire in the province of Zamora which continues to be one of the most affected provinces, according to the latest balance sheet on Tuesday morning.

“In Zamora there are two of the six most serious fires of the day, those classified as level 2, the second most serious on the scale. They are Almaraz de Duero and Villaseco del Pan and Losacio. The operators also watch with special concern those of Ponferrada- Montes de Valdueza (León); Folgoso du Courel and A Pobra de Brollón (Lugo): Carballeda de Valdeorras (Ourense) and Madín and Verín, also in Ourense”, describes the newspaper.

This second heat wave of the summer ends this Tuesday after 10 days with temperatures between 39 °C and 45 °C in almost the entire Peninsula that have left 510 deaths that can be attributed, according to the Carlos III Health Institute, to the very high temperatures .

Of the 510 people who would have died from the heat wave, it is estimated that 321 are over 85 years old, 121 are between 75 and 84, and another 44 would have died between 65 and 74 years old.

The suffocating heat is expected to return to much of the country in the coming days. The descent will be motivated, explains the EFE agency, “among other things because the DANA, which has remained off the Portuguese Atlantic coast in recent days, begins to move more efficiently towards the northeast to position itself in the last hours of this Monday against to the Galician coast, bringing the freshest Atlantic air closer to the peninsula”.

The UK recorded a record temperature of 40.2°C for the first time.

The United Kingdom recorded its hottest day in its history on Tuesday, with a record temperature of 40.2 degrees Celsius, according to provisional figures from the country’s Meteorological Office. The record was made at London Heathrow airport, surpassing the previous record of 38.7 ° C in 2019.

“For the first time in history, 40 degrees Celsius has been provisionally exceeded in the UK,” the Met said. “Temperatures continue to rise in many places, so remember to stay on top of the weather,” they recommended.

Much of England is on red alert for the heat wave on Tuesday, while the rest of the UK territory remains amber, one scale less than red.

The Met’s warning notes that parts of the country could see record highs of up to 42C and there could be some relief on Wednesday.

The authorities insist that the population maintain a high level of hydration and do not expose themselves to the sun in the middle of the day.

On Monday, Britain’s Luton airport, north of London, was forced to temporarily suspend flights due to damage to part of the runway due to high temperatures.

With EFE, Reuters and local media