(Strasbourg) The extreme and early heat wave that has been hitting southern and central Europe for the past few days, causing numerous forest fires, moved further east on Sunday, with new records broken in Germany and Austria.
Updated yesterday at 12:22 p.m.
In eastern Germany, the 38°C threshold has been reached in the regions of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, according to the public meteorological body DWD.
The thermometer even rose to 38.7 ° C in the city of Cottbus, a new record for the month of June in the country.
As a result of the hot weather, the fire that broke out on Friday in Brandenburg, near Berlin, has spread further, and now covers nearly 100 hectares.
“Three districts” of the town of Treuenbrietzen, in the regional state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, were evacuated on Sunday, “around 700 people”, a spokesman for the district of Potsdam-Mittelmark told AFP. .
According to local media, the fire ravaged around a hundred hectares in this wooded and rural region, around the municipality of Treuenbrietzen, where nearly 8,000 inhabitants live.
The multiplication of heat waves in Europe is a direct consequence of global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions increase the strength, duration and rate of repetition of heat waves, scientists say.
“We avoid going out too much”
The French meteorological service lifted its red alert on Sunday morning on the 11 affected departments in the south-west, where absolute heat records were shattered on Saturday, such as the 42.9 ° C recorded in Biarritz.
But 52 others remain placed in orange vigilance in the center and east of the country, with peaks that can reach 39 ° C in Alsace, a region bordering Germany.
Under a blazing sun and in suffocating heat, the forecourt of Strasbourg cathedral, usually crowded on a spring Sunday, was thus deserted, the most daring tourists rushing to the ice cream parlors
“We avoid going out too much,” observes Guillaume Martin, a 30-year-old medical student who has just slipped his ballot into one of the country’s polling stations, on this day of legislative elections.
As a result of this heat wave combined with an already well-established drought, 600 hectares of vegetation went up in smoke in the Var (south), set ablaze by artillery fire in a military training camp.
And in Aveyron, a fire ravaged 430 hectares before being brought under control, without causing any casualties.
According to Météo-France, the heat wave should gradually give way overnight from Sunday to Monday, under the effect of thunderstorms in particular.
Photo by GUILLAUME SOUVANT, Agence France-Presse
The ravages of forest fires in Genille, France
Always warmer in Switzerland, record in Austria
In neighboring Switzerland, “after the first monthly heat records recorded on Saturday, temperatures will rise a few more degrees today,” MeteoSwiss said.
Around 12:00 GMT, temperatures were already between 32 and 34 ° C, 1 to 4 ° C higher than Saturday at the same time. The 35°C mark had already been reached in Geneva.
Neuchâtel (west) notably broke its record with 34.7°C against a previous record of 34.1°C in 2019.
On the Austrian side of the border, it was 36.5 degrees at 3 p.m. local time in Feldkirch in Vorarlberg (west), beyond the previous record of 36.3 ° C dating from June 30, 1950, according to the central institute of meteorology and geodynamics (ZAMG).
The number of days with a temperature of at least 30°C in June has doubled or even quadrupled in lower-lying regions of Austria in recent decades, according to a study by the institute.
In Switzerland, after this heat peak, temperatures will drop slightly, but will remain at a scorching level on Monday and Tuesday.
25,000 hectares burned in Spain
In Spain, temperatures were already starting to drop in most of the country, with mercury expected to reach only 29°C in Madrid on Sunday and 25°C in the province of Zamora (northwest).
But the country was still grappling with forest fires, the largest of which has already destroyed more than 25,000 hectares in the Sierra de la Culebra, a mountain range in the Castile and Leon region, near the border with the Portugal, according to regional authorities.
The fire had forced the authorities to evacuate 14 villages, bringing together several hundred inhabitants. The latter were allowed to return home on Sunday morning, due to the improvement in the situation, local officials said.
Spanish firefighters also continued to fight several fires in Catalonia and Navarre.
The current wave arrived from the Maghreb via the Iberian Peninsula.