France braced itself on Monday for the peak of the heatwave sweeping the country, with sweltering temperatures expected from the Mediterranean to Brittany in the northwest.
Forecasters have put 15 departments across the country on high extreme temperature alert, including the Gironde in the south-west, where wildfires have already wreaked havoc.
In the Landes forest in the south-western Aquitaine region, temperatures will “be in excess of 42 degrees Celsius,” forecaster Olivier Proust said.
And Brittany, which until recently escaped the worst of the heat, could see temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), experts say, which would be a record for the region.
The increasing number of extreme weather events is the direct result of global warming, as greenhouse gases increase their intensity, duration and frequency, scientists say.
The intense heatwave has already caused several wildfires in France and elsewhere, and some farmers have started working at night to minimize the risk of a spark from their harvesters starting a fire that destroys their crops.
By late Sunday, the fires that had been raging in the Gironde since Tuesday had already destroyed 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres), driven by high winds and forced the evacuation of 16,200 holidaymakers, fire officials said.
– “Red Alert” heat warnings –
The fire in the forest of Teste-de-Buch in south-west France has reached the beach and is moving south, the local prefecture said. Video captured by local people showed the massive fire consuming La Lagoon beach near the famous Dune of Pilat – Europe’s tallest sand dune.
France’s interior ministry said it would send three more firefighting planes to reinforce the six planes already deployed in the area, as well as 200 more firefighters and more equipment.
But crews battling the fire will have to deal with rising temperatures on Monday. It is one of the regions where a heatwave warning is “red alert”.
“There will be a heat apocalypse in certain zones in the southwest,” forecaster Francois Gourand of Meteo-France told AFP.
Temperatures across France are expected to be above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), but will range between 38 and 40 degrees in the western half of the country.
Officials in several regions have now also issued pollution warnings because of high ozone concentrations.
The heatwave sweeps across much of western Europe, with high temperatures and wildfires in Spain and Portugal.
Britain’s Met Office has issued a first-ever ‘red’ warning of extreme heat, warning it is at ‘risk to life’ and attributing the heatwave to human-caused climate change.
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