European countries yesterday sent teams of firefighters to help France fight the "monstrous" element, and fires were also raging in Spain and Portugal. The head of the European Space Agency has called for urgent action to combat climate change.
More than a thousand firefighters, supported by firefighting aircraft, battled a blaze for a third straight day that has forced thousands of people from their homes, scorched 6.800 hectares of forest and destroyed homes in southwestern France's Gironde region.
Amid a dangerous cocktail of high temperatures, powder keg conditions and winds fanning the blaze, fire services are struggling to bring the blaze under control.
"It's a monster," said Gregory Allion of the French firefighting federation FNSPF.
President Emmanuel Macron's office said additional firefighting planes were arriving from Greece and Sweden, while Germany, Austria, Romania and Poland were sending firefighters to help fight the fires in France.
"European solidarity in action!" wrote not Macron on Twitter.
Heat waves, floods and melting glaciers in recent weeks have heightened concerns about climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather worldwide.
The head of the European Space Agency (ESA), Jozef Ashbacher, said that the rise in land temperatures and the drop in river levels that have been measured leave no doubt about the damage that climate change is causing to agriculture and other industries.
The Sentinel-3 series of satellites developed by ESA as part of the Copernicus program have measured "extreme" land surface temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius in Britain, 50 degrees in France and 60 in Spain in recent weeks.
"It's pretty bad. We've seen extremes that haven't been seen before," Aschbacher told Reuters.
In Romania, where record temperatures and drought have dried up rivers, Greenpeace activists protested on the ruined banks of the Danube to draw attention to global warming and call on governments to cut emissions.
As one heatwave after another scorches Europe this summer, bringing record temperatures and unprecedented droughts, the threat of climate change to agriculture, industry and livelihoods is back in the spotlight.
Reuters writes that the extreme drought is expected to reduce corn yields in the European Union by 15 percent to the lowest level in the last 15 years, at a time when Europeans are struggling with rising food prices due to reduced grain exports from Russia and Ukraine.
Swiss military helicopters have been deployed to deliver water to thirsty cows, pigs and goats under the hot sun on alpine meadows.
In France, hit by its worst drought on record, trucks are delivering water to dozens of villages where taps have run dry, nuclear power plants have been granted an exemption from rules on discharging hot water into rivers, and farmers are warning that a lack of fodder could lead to milk shortages.
In Germany, scant rainfall this summer has reduced the water level of the Rhine, the country's commercial artery, making it difficult to transport goods.
But as Europe grapples with yet another heat wave, one group of workers has no choice but to endure - food delivery workers in the freelance economy.
After the mayor of Palermo on the island of Sicily ordered in July that horses ridden by tourists be given at least ten liters of water a day, Gaetano Russo, who delivers food by bicycle, filed a lawsuit, seeking similar treatment.
"Am I worth less than a horse," Russo said, as reported by the NIdiL syndicate.
Yesterday, the British Met Office issued "extreme heat" warnings for four days for parts of England and Wales.
In Portugal, more than 1.500 firefighters battled a blaze in the central Covilha area for a sixth straight day that burned 10.500 hectares, including parts of Serra de Estrela National Park.
In Spain, storms accompanied by thunder caused new fires, and hundreds of people were evacuated in the province of Cáceres.
A drop that overflowed the glass
More than 57.600 hectares have burned in France so far this year, almost six times the annual average for 2006-2021, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed.
The French authorities have forecast temperatures of 40 degrees in the Gironde department for yesterday and today.
The area was hit by wildfires in July, which destroyed more than 20.000 hectares of forest and temporarily forced nearly 40.000 people from their homes.
The mayor of Hosten, Jean-Louis Dartial, described last Sunday as a catastrophe.
"This area is completely disfigured. Our hearts are broken, we are exhausted," he told Radio Klasik. "(This fire) is the last straw."
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