Forest fires and heat wave in Western Europe

(Lisbon) Parts of western Europe continued to battle devastating wildfires on Saturday as a result of a heat wave, forecasters said, that could shatter several temperature records early next week.

Four days after the start of the fires, the firefighters of Gironde continued to lead a “titanic” fight, “pine by pine”, to try to fix two indomitable fires which ravaged more than 10,000 hectares of forest and pushed more than 14,000 people to evacuate, in a context of generalized heat wave expected all weekend in France.

“Several fires are still active in France, I am following the operations closely,” tweeted Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Saturday evening, giving a brief summary of the situation in France: “10,000 hectares burned in Gironde, thousands of evacuees. Our firefighters are fighting the flames with remarkable courage. In the Bouches-du-Rhône, the fire is set”.

In the municipalities of Landiras and Guillos, in the south-east of the Gironde, the situation was still “critical” in the evening, with “more than 7000 hectares” gone up in smoke, the prefecture said in a press release.

Due to the “changing winds which are causing the fire to progress on different fronts”, the order was given at the start of the afternoon to proceed with the evacuation of the “village of Tuzan, the hamlet of Villagrain in the commune of Cabanac- et-Villagrain and, in the municipality of Hostens, the town and the nautical base”. In this sector, “1,900 people” evacuated the area, “including 93 minors”.

In total, “more than 14,000” residents and vacationers had to pack up urgently. Seven emergency accommodation centers and a medico-psychological emergency cell were opened to support the victims.

On the other front, at Teste-de-Buch, the efforts made have made it possible in recent hours to slow the progression of the fire, without however fixing it.

“This evening, we are at 3200 hectares burned against 3150 this morning in La Teste-de-Buch, the perimeter is almost constant, but the fire is not absolutely under control”, declared in the evening to the press the sub-prefect of Arcachon Ronan Léaustic.

“We have resumptions almost everywhere on the whole perimeter, because of the wind. We save the land pin by pin, ”he assured.

In the afternoon, an operation secured by the police, allowing the inhabitants of Cazaux to “recover and feed their animals”, began before being interrupted due to “a resumption of fire which has been stabilized. She was then able to resume.

In addition, a new strategy with the lighting of “tactical fires” and the “creation of firewalls” (clear cuts) has been put in place thanks to the use of bulldozers and the joint work of Sdis with the Office national des Forêts, the Gironde federation for the defense of forests against fires (DFCI) and forestry work companies.

“We are working on the flanks to fix them. It is vigilance at all times, day and night, there is no stopping, ”insisted the communication officer of Sdis 33, Laurent Dellac.

“We have almost 30 kilometers of edge, so it’s a titanic job”, explained earlier his colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Chavatte.

In 24 hours, the Sdis “had to deal with 22 forest fire starts in the Gironde department”, had pointed out the prefecture a little earlier.

Other outbreaks of fire have indeed been reported in recent hours on the side of the beaches of La Lagune and Petit-Nice, south of the Dune du Pilat.

The day before, some 450 families had been able to recover their personal effects in the five campsites evacuated from this same sector.

Calm in the Iberian Peninsula

Portugal was experiencing a relative calm, with only one major fire still active on Saturday in the north of the country.

“We plan to contain this fire during the day,” said Civil Protection Commander André Fernandes.

This fire seemed to lose intensity at the start of the afternoon, AFP journalists testified on the spot. If the wooded hill from which escaped white smoke was inaccessible to the firefighters, the action of a fire-fighting helicopter managed at this stage to limit the progression of the flames.

The day before, a water bomber plane which was fighting a forest fire in the region of Guarda (north) crashed, causing the death of the pilot, its sole occupant.

According to a report from the Portuguese civil protection, the fires of the last week have left two dead and around sixty injured. According to his estimates, these fires have ravaged, since the start of the heat wave, between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of forest and brush.

In Spain, dozens of fires were still raging from north to south of the country. In the region of Extremadura, bordering Portugal, a section of the A5 motorway, linking Madrid to the Portuguese border, could be reopened to traffic after being closed for more than twelve hours due to an inferno.

In the far south, in Andalusia, a fire near Malaga forced the preventive evacuation of more than 3,000 people, according to the Andalusian emergency services.

In Greece, firefighters continued to fight an outbreak that broke out on Friday morning, causing the preventive evacuation of seven villages in a rural area of ​​the prefecture of Rethymno, on the island of Crete.

The Spanish Meteorological Agency kept virtually the whole country under different high temperature alert levels on Saturday, with values ​​above 40 ºC in many areas and up to 44 ºC in places.

In Portugal, only the southern Algarve region was not on heat alert. In the rest of the country, the Meteorological Institute predicts temperatures that can reach 42 ° C in places on Saturday.

UK red alert

Further north in Europe, in the UK, a crisis committee made up of British government ministers was due to meet on Saturday after the national weather agency issued the first-ever ‘red’ alert for extreme heat , warning of a “risk to life”.

The Met Office said temperatures in southern England could top 40C for the first time on Monday or Tuesday, potentially breaking the record high of 38.7C from 2019.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has advised Londoners to only use public transport on these days when it is “absolutely necessary”. Rail companies have also urged passengers to avoid travel.

Some schools in the south of England have told parents they will remain closed from the start of next week.

This heat wave is the second in barely a month in Europe. The multiplication of these phenomena is a direct consequence of global warming according to scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency.