Europe heatwave: Child dies of heatstroke as record-breaking temperatures spark wildfires
On Tuesday, an employee of a Spanish equestrian centre died from his injuries in a suburb north of Madrid, officials said — reportedly as he tried to save horses.
Later, officials in Castile and Leon in northwestern Spain confirmed another man had been killed while fighting fires.
In Montenegro, a soldier also died, and another was seriously injured when their water tanker overturned while fighting wildfires in the hills north of the capital, Podgorica.
'A significantly warmer world' Heat alerts were issued in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans, with temperatures expected to soar above 40C, and experts say the heatwave is another sign of climate change, which is fuelling longer, more intense and increasingly frequent bouts of extreme heat.
"Thanks to climate change, we now live in a significantly warmer world," Akshay Deoras, a research scientist at the meteorology department in England's University of Reading told the Agence France-Presse news agency, adding that "many still underestimate the danger".
Thousands forced from their homes Hundreds of residents of Tres Cantos, near the Spanish capital Madrid, fled from the fast-moving blaze, which was contained on Tuesday morning. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X that rescue services were "working tirelessly to extinguish the fires."
Elsewhere, about 2,000 people were evacuated from hotels and homes near the popular beaches of Tarifa in Andalusia, southern Spain.
In Castile and Leon, dozens of blazes were reported, including one threatening Las Medulas, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its ancient Roman gold mines. In neighbouring Portugal, firefighters battled three large wildfires, with the most serious near Trancoso in the centre of the country, where 700 firefighters were deployed.
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The Australian
11 hours ago
- The Australian
Spain on heat alert and 'very high to extreme' fire risk
All of Spain was on heatwave alert on Friday, while the weather agency warned that much of the country was at "very high to extreme risk" from wildfires. The situation had improved for several other southern European countries, but Greece was still fighting fires on one Aegean island. Much of Spain has already endured nearly two weeks of high temperatures, and on Friday the searing heat spread to Cantabria, which had so far been spared. Temperatures in the northwestern region were forecast to pass 40C, said Aemet, the national weather agency. The risk of fires on Friday and over the weekend into Monday was "very high or extreme in most of the country", it added. Spain has endured a devastating season of fires, with 157,501 hectares (389,193 acres) reduced to ashes since the start of the year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Yet that figure is still well short of 2022, when more than 306,000 hectares went up in smoke. Three people have died during the fires, including two young volunteers in their thirties who lost their lives trying to put out a fire in the Castile and Leon area. One of them, Jaime Aparicio Vidales, was buried in the town of Quintanilla de Florez, Zamora province, Castile and Leon, on Friday. - 'Nothing left to burn' - On Thursday morning, France sent two water-bombing planes to help try to douse the flames in the northwestern region, where a dozen fires were still raging. The railway line between Madrid and the northwestern region of Galicia remained closed as well as some 10 main roads in the country. Marco Raton, 35, works on a pig farm in Sesnandez de Tabara near one of the fires in Castile and Leon that forced several thousand people to flee their homes. He said he and his friends did not think twice when they saw the fire arrive on Tuesday and grabbed "everything we had -- backpacks, fire bats and garden hoses -- put on appropriate clothing and went over to help". "As soon as we arrived, we started seeing burned people being evacuated, a car on fire, a burning tractor, warehouses, garages," he told AFP, adding that he felt "helpless". Raton said he thought there was "nothing left to burn" after devastating fires in the same region in 2022 but he said he was convinced that "this will continue to happen to us year after year". Angel Roman, the mayor of Ferreruela, said he believed that fire breaks cleared of brush should be established around the villages. "The countryside, if it's clean, can stop the fire," he added. - Political row - Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist PSOE party and the conservative PP have clashed in recent days over the crisis, with regional administrations normally tasked with putting out forest fires. The central government only intervenes in major incidents and can call on an emergency military unit, which has been in high demand as reinforcement. The PP accuses the government of having cut the number of air assets, something the PSOE has denied, accusing some opposition leaders of staying on holiday while their regions burned. Elsewhere in southern Europe, lower temperatures and reduced wind were helping to improve the situation in Greece and the Balkans, where rain was forecast in many parts of the region. Firefighters remained in Patras, Greece's third-largest city, due to "scattered" fires and were on the look-out if any reignite. The most active was still on the Mediterranean island of Chios, in the northeastern Aegean Sea, where eight aircraft have been deployed to try to douse the flames. The risk of fire remained high in the Attica region that includes the capital, Athens, and the southern Pelopponese peninsula, the Civil Protection agency warned on Friday. In Albania, initial government estimates said thousands of cattle had been killed and 40 homes destroyed in just three days of wildfires. burs-mig/phz/jj
News.com.au
13 hours ago
- News.com.au
Spain on heat alert and 'very high to extreme' fire risk
All of Spain was on heatwave alert on Friday, while the weather agency warned that much of the country was at "very high to extreme risk" from wildfires. The situation had improved for several other southern European countries, but Greece was still fighting fires on one Aegean island. Much of Spain has already endured nearly two weeks of high temperatures, and on Friday the searing heat spread to Cantabria, which had so far been spared. Temperatures in the northwestern region were forecast to pass 40C, said Aemet, the national weather agency. The risk of fires on Friday and over the weekend into Monday was "very high or extreme in most of the country", it added. Spain has endured a devastating season of fires, with 157,501 hectares (389,193 acres) reduced to ashes since the start of the year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Yet that figure is still well short of 2022, when more than 306,000 hectares went up in smoke. Three people have died during the fires, including two young volunteers in their thirties who lost their lives trying to put out a fire in the Castile and Leon area. One of them, Jaime Aparicio Vidales, was buried in the town of Quintanilla de Florez, Zamora province, Castile and Leon, on Friday. - 'Nothing left to burn' - On Thursday morning, France sent two water-bombing planes to help try to douse the flames in the northwestern region, where a dozen fires were still raging. The railway line between Madrid and the northwestern region of Galicia remained closed as well as some 10 main roads in the country. Marco Raton, 35, works on a pig farm in Sesnandez de Tabara near one of the fires in Castile and Leon that forced several thousand people to flee their homes. He said he and his friends did not think twice when they saw the fire arrive on Tuesday and grabbed "everything we had -- backpacks, fire bats and garden hoses -- put on appropriate clothing and went over to help". "As soon as we arrived, we started seeing burned people being evacuated, a car on fire, a burning tractor, warehouses, garages," he told AFP, adding that he felt "helpless". Raton said he thought there was "nothing left to burn" after devastating fires in the same region in 2022 but he said he was convinced that "this will continue to happen to us year after year". Angel Roman, the mayor of Ferreruela, said he believed that fire breaks cleared of brush should be established around the villages. "The countryside, if it's clean, can stop the fire," he added. - Political row - Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist PSOE party and the conservative PP have clashed in recent days over the crisis, with regional administrations normally tasked with putting out forest fires. The central government only intervenes in major incidents and can call on an emergency military unit, which has been in high demand as reinforcement. The PP accuses the government of having cut the number of air assets, something the PSOE has denied, accusing some opposition leaders of staying on holiday while their regions burned. Elsewhere in southern Europe, lower temperatures and reduced wind were helping to improve the situation in Greece and the Balkans, where rain was forecast in many parts of the region. Firefighters remained in Patras, Greece's third-largest city, due to "scattered" fires and were on the look-out if any reignite. The most active was still on the Mediterranean island of Chios, in the northeastern Aegean Sea, where eight aircraft have been deployed to try to douse the flames. The risk of fire remained high in the Attica region that includes the capital, Athens, and the southern Pelopponese peninsula, the Civil Protection agency warned on Friday. In Albania, initial government estimates said thousands of cattle had been killed and 40 homes destroyed in just three days of wildfires.
News.com.au
a day ago
- News.com.au
Spain suffers third wildfire death, Greece beats back flames
Spain on Thursday mourned its third wildfire death this week and Greece began beating back a blaze threatening its third-largest city as an unrelenting heatwave stoked tinderbox conditions in southern Europe. The extreme summer heat, which scientists say human-driven climate change is lengthening and intensifying, has fuelled blazes and stretched firefighters across the region, including Portugal and the Balkans. The fires have particularly scorched Spain, devouring over 157,000 hectares (388,000 acres) this year -- more than triple the area burned during the same period in 2024. Spanish authorities said one person battling flames in the northwestern Castile and Leon region had died, taking the toll to three after earlier reporting fatalities there and near Madrid this week. Climate change is fuelling larger, more intense wildfires like those in Spain that can alter upper-atmosphere dynamics and create unpredictable winds, making fire behaviour harder to forecast, said Antonio Jordan Lopez, a wildfire expert at the University of Seville. "Picture a fire so fierce, so fast, and so unpredictable it seems alive, capable of reshaping the weather around it and leaping across kilometres in a heartbeat," he added. France announced it would send two water bombers to Spain, which has appealed to the European Union for aircraft to reinforce hard-pressed firefighting teams battling on several fronts, notably in the northwest. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes this week in Spain because of the fires, mostly in Castile and Leon. - Arson arrests - Greece, which has also requested EU assistance against wildfires, gained ground against a major blaze that had closed in on the western port city of Patras. Firefighters there faced "scattered" pockets of flames but the fire was "still active" in the eastern outskirts of the city of 250,000 people, fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said. Some 600 ground crews and nearly 30 water bombing aircraft were deployed from dawn in all locations, he said, but gentler winds were helping the firefighting effort. Major outbreaks also stretched emergency services on the tourist island of Zante, the Aegean island of Chios and near the western town of Preveza. Citing data from the EU's Copernicus satellite monitoring programme, the National Observatory of Athens said those fires and the Patras blaze had burned more than 10,000 hectares. Authorities said three men aged 19 to 27 had been detained on suspicion of starting some of the fires around Patras on Tuesday. Spanish investigators said Thursday they had arrested four people suspected of starting forest fires, taking the total number of accused this summer to 30. - 'It was frightening' - Portugal mobilised more than 1,900 firefighters against four major blazes, with one in the central area of Trancoso having razed an estimated 14,000 hectares since Saturday. Another front that broke out on Wednesday in the mountainous central Arganil area occupied more than 800 firefighters. "The flames were enormous... it was frightening," a woman in the village of Mourisia told Sic Noticias television as she gazed at a slope enveloped in thick smoke. Although vulnerable and elderly people had been evacuated as a precaution, Antonio Silva refused to leave the village overnight. "I wanted to be here to help," said the man in his 70s, his face shielded with a mask. The Balkans appeared to have overcome the worst of an exceptionally strong heatwave that worsened its traditional fire season, destroying homes and prompting the evacuation of thousands. Albanian firefighters continued to struggle against blazes around the country, with reports of more homes lost overnight. In neighbouring Montenegro, easing conditions and water-bombing aircraft helped gain the upper hand against wildfires. Tourist hotspots Rome and Venice were among 16 Italian cities placed on red alert for extreme heat, with peaks of 39 Celsius predicted for Florence on the eve of a busy holiday weekend.
