Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy –
Heat wave and fires leave no respite to southern Europe
Evacuated houses, exhausted firefighters and charred landscapes. From Spain, to Greece, the lights follow one another.
Keystone
No respite for the south of l’Europe facing fire: Portugal, Greece, Italy and especially Spain, where a third death was recorded, continue to fight the flames on Thursday, in the heat of the heat wave.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez deplored “the death of a second volunteer in León”-a 36-year-old man, who died Thursday morning in Castile-et-León (North West)-and stressed that “the threat remains extreme” to Spain, where Paris sent two Canadair.
Spain enters its twelfth day of heat wave and the population as the firefighters are exhausted.
Eleven fires are classified at level 2 (out of 4) and that of Zamora (in Castile-et-Léon), “where a large area has burned (…) worried”, many, said on public television the Spanish Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska who claimed from the European Union two Canadair.
His French counterpart, Bruno Retailleau, answered the call, announcing the sending of two planes specializing in fire fighting.
While most Spaniards seek to refresh their accommodation at night, others must confine themselves or to leave their house in the face of the progress of the flames.
Since the start of this fire episode, 10,700 people have been evacuated according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Spain on the front line
Premiere country of global warming in Europe, Spain is used to extreme temperatures, but it has been facing a multiplication and intensification of heat waves for a few years.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 148,000 hectares have left smoke in this country, according to the European Forest Information System (Effis), and 200 fires have been recorded.
In addition to Castile-et-Léon, Galicia (north-west), the Valence region (East) and Estremadu (west) concern a lot, and about fifteen road axes are cut, according to a map of the General Traffic Directorate (DGT).
“This night, the worst forecasts were made,” wrote on X Abel Bautista, a regional Extmaadure (west) regional government official, now placing the whole region on fire alert 2 and asking the population the “maximum prudence”.
Fires multiply
In neighboring Portugal, about fifteen air means are mobilized to fight four large forest fires in the north and the center of the country. In the center, the Arganil home alone requires more than 800 firefighters, while the Brazier of Transcoso, which has been raging since Saturday, continues to progress on Thursday.
In Greece, where 20,000 hectares have been destroyed by fire since June, the firefighters managed to circumscribe the fire that threatened Patras, the main port to Italy and the third largest city in the country.
There are “scattered” homes, even if the fire is “still active” in the suburbs is of the city with more than 200,000 inhabitants, according to firefighters.
Elsewhere in the country, water bombers fought on three other fronts, the Ionian island of Zante (west), the Aegean island of Chios (East) and near the western city of Preveza.
About 600 teams on the ground and nearly 30 water bombers were deployed at dawn on all sites.
In the Balkans, the fires killed at least two people, and led to the evacuation of thousands of inhabitants.
In Albania, one of the hardest affected countries, firefighters tirelessly fought fires, while the neighboring Montenegro, climatic conditions and airlines have made it possible to master the main forest fires.
Heat wave in Italy
A hot heat continues to weigh on Italy, relatively spared from the fires this summer, and where 16 cities including Rome and Venice are placed on a red alert.
In Florence, the thermometer should go up to 39 ° C, and in Milan, up to 38 ° C. But it takes more to dissuade the Italians from undertaking the great transhumance of the weekend of August 15: 12 million vehicles are expected on the roads.
Even northern Europe is affected by the heat wave: Finland thus recorded 22 consecutive days of temperatures above 30 ° C in July.
According to the World Weather Assignment Scientific Network (WWA), the weather exceptionally hot for two weeks in July led to many faintings during outdoor events, saturated and overheated hospitals, caused forest fires, increased drowning or even pushed the reindeer to seek shadow in cities.
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