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More from World<\/p>\nFirefighters are battling wildfires across Europe as record heat and severe drought create dangerous conditions, forcing evacuations, damaging homes and disrupting infrastructure. \n <\/p>\n
Firefighters across Europe were battling multiple wildfires on Friday as record-breaking heat and severe drought turned large parts of the continent into tinderboxes, forcing thousands of people to evacuate and putting homes, forests and critical infrastructure at risk.<\/p>\n
The extreme temperatures have been linked to human-caused climate change and are particularly challenging for countries that have historically experienced milder summers and have limited access to air conditioning.<\/p>\n
France faces fires amid record drought<\/p>\n
France, which is experiencing its driest year on record, was among the worst-hit countries.<\/p>\n
A new wildfire tore through woodland in the Landes region in the southwest overnight, forcing more than 500 people to leave their homes in Luglon. Hundreds of firefighters were deployed to contain the blaze.<\/p>\n
Several other fires have erupted across France, including in northern areas and Brittany, regions normally associated with cooler and wetter conditions. Last month, a massive blaze near Bordeaux destroyed large areas of forest and forced around 250,000 people from their homes.<\/p>\n
Extreme weather has also affected France’s nuclear power sector. Utility EDF said six reactors had been shut down in recent days because of heat and drought, while one plant was affected by large numbers of jellyfish along the English Channel coast.<\/p>\n
More from World<\/p>\n
EDF said the shutdowns had only a limited impact on electricity production and posed no safety risk to the reactors.<\/p>\n
UK wildfire destroys homes<\/p>\n
In Stourbridge, central England, a major wildfire that began Thursday spread to residential areas, destroying around 20 to 30 homes, according to local lawmaker Cat Eccles.<\/p>\n
Nineteen people and six firefighters were hospitalised for smoke inhalation and other injuries in wildfires across the West Midlands.<\/p>\n
The Met Office recorded 38.1\u00b0C in west London on Thursday, making it Britain’s hottest day of the year. Although temperatures eased slightly Friday, much of the country has received little or no rainfall for weeks. July was the driest month recorded in England and Wales since records began in 1836.<\/p>\n
Spain, Germany and Croatia hit by major fires<\/p>\n
Wildfires were also spreading across southern Europe.<\/p>\n
In northeastern Spain, authorities moved the remains of three 11th-century kings from a monastery threatened by a wildfire, along with paintings and other historic objects. Around 800 people were evacuated.<\/p>\n
Another much larger fire in southern Spain has burned more than 300 square kilometres in Huelva province.<\/p>\n
In western Germany, all 1,800 residents of Gey were evacuated as flames approached homes near the H\u00fcrtgen forest. Nearly 300 hectares of forest were burning, with unexploded World War II ordnance complicating firefighting operations.<\/p>\n
Germany has also recorded an alarming rise in heat-related deaths. The Robert Koch Institute estimated that around 12,500 people died from heat-related causes between January 1 and August 2, already exceeding the country’s total for 2018.<\/p>\n
In Croatia, one person died and 14 were hospitalised after a wildfire near Omis forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate. Strong winds rapidly spread the flames, prompting 194 people, including children, to flee by sea.<\/p>\n
Wildfires were also reported in Albania and northern Greece, where more than 300 people were evacuated by sea.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Belgium and the Netherlands were expected to reach 37\u00b0C, with the Netherlands continuing to face severe drought and local water shortages.<\/p>\n
The combination of extreme heat, prolonged dryness and strong winds has left much of Europe facing an increasingly difficult summer of wildfires.<\/p>\n
With inputs from agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefighters are battling wildfires across Europe as record heat and severe drought create dangerous conditions, forcing evacuations, damaging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1512,27652,27649,16795,21525,24678,27653,21531,24599,27651,22053,20712,17,24445,21532,27650,27654],"class_list":["post-70561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-climate-change","tag-croatia-wildfire","tag-europe-drought","tag-europe-heatwave","tag-europe-weather","tag-europe-wildfires","tag-extreme-heat-europe","tag-france-heatwave","tag-france-wildfires","tag-germany-wildfire","tag-greece-wildfire","tag-heat-related-deaths","tag-spain","tag-spain-wildfires","tag-uk-heatwave","tag-uk-wildfires","tag-wildfire-evacuations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}