{"id":335977,"date":"2025-08-11T14:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T14:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/335977\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T14:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T14:52:10","slug":"southern-europe-swelters-under-deadly-heatwave-as-temperatures-pass-40c-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/335977\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Europe swelters under deadly heatwave as temperatures pass 40C | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deadly heat of up to 44C is searing southern Europe<\/a>, as scientists warn of a \u201cmolotov cocktail\u201d of climatic conditions that is fuelling vast wildfires across the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

M\u00e9t\u00e9o-France placed more than half the country under heatwave warnings on Monday morning, with 12 out of 96 administrative units on the mainland under the highest red alert, while Spain\u2019s Aemet warned of \u201cextreme danger\u201d in Zaragoza and the Basque Country as it issued yellow and orange warnings for almost all the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

Both weather agencies forecast temperatures above 40C over the coming days and called for vigilance amid forecasts of \u201ca very intense, even exceptional\u201d heatwave in parts of the continent.<\/p>\n

The high temperatures have alarmed experts as firefighters struggle to contain destructive wildfires. In France, which brought its biggest fire since 1949 under control on Sunday, authorities reported that one person had died in the blaze, while 20 firefighters and five civilians had been injured.<\/p>\n

In Italy, where temperatures of 40C are expected to hit Florence on Wednesday, tourist trails were closed on Mount Vesuvius<\/a> on Sunday as firefighters fought a blaze on the slopes of the volcano.<\/p>\n

In the Balkans, Croatian officials praised the \u201csuperhuman\u201d efforts of firefighters as they put out a large fire near Split on Monday, while Serbian meteorologists warned of \u201cextreme conditions\u201d for fires to develop amid temperatures of up to 40C. Wildfires<\/a> in Albania and Montenegro also forced people to flee their homes, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n

Firefighters tackling a wildfire near Yeres, north-western Spain, on Sunday. Photograph: UME\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In Spain<\/a>, fires that broke out in Le\u00f3n and Zamora on Sunday forced more than 1,000 people to flee their homes, while large fires continued to burn in Galicia.<\/p>\n

Cristina Sant\u00edn Nu\u00f1o, a fire scientist at the Spanish National Research Council, said the large number of blazes was \u201cto be expected\u201d after a wet spring that helped plants grow was followed by extreme heat, strong winds and long periods without rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we add to this the relatively easy possibility that a spark can ignite a fire somewhere \u2026 we have all the ingredients for the \u2018molotov cocktail\u2019 we\u2019re seeing right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

French forecasters said heat records were likely to be broken on Monday and Tuesday as temperatures pass 42C in the south-west. Temperatures hit a record high of 41.4C in the village of Tourbes, near B\u00e9ziers, at the weekend.<\/p>\n

In Spain, temperatures on Monday were expected to rise further in the Ebro basin, the southern and eastern thirds of the Iberian peninsula, and the eastern Cantabrian Sea. They were forecast to fall in the north-west, particularly in Galicia.<\/p>\n

The weather agency said it expected heat of 37-39C across the interior of the Iberian peninsula on Monday, with maximum temperatures above 40C in the interior of the Basque Country and highs that could reach above 44C in the lower Guadalquivir.<\/p>\n

Jes\u00fas Santiago Notario del Pino, a soil scientist at the University of La Laguna, said conditions of \u201cextreme and prolonged heat\u201d had primed the large number of fires across the country by drying out fuel.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAreas in the centre and north-west, theoretically less prone to severe fires \u2013 compared with the Mediterranean coast, for example \u2013 are burning. This is striking to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world has warmed by about 1.4C because of fossil fuel pollution, which forms a heat-trapping blanket around the Earth, and the destruction of nature, which sucks carbon dioxide from the air.<\/p>\n

People queue for water at a public fountain near St Peter\u2019s Square in Rome. Photograph: Fabio Frustaci\/EPA<\/p>\n

In Europe, which has warmed nearly twice as fast as the global average, a warm and dry air mass hanging over much of the Iberian peninsula and France has coincided with high levels of summer sunshine that have pushed temperatures even higher.<\/p>\n

In addition to the risk to humans from flames and smoke, the wildfires in Spain have also threatened Las M\u00e9dulas world heritage site in El Bierzo.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, today is a sad day for me,\u201d said Sant\u00edn Nu\u00f1o, who is from El Bierzo. \u201cLas M\u00e9dulas has burned there, a beautiful spot with centuries-old chestnut trees and a Unesco world heritage site.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cIn Spain, we\u2019re facing a new reality of forest fires because our landscapes have changed a lot in recent decades \u2013 there\u2019s more vegetation susceptible to burning \u2013 and now, climate change is creating more opportunities for these landscapes to burn more widely, intensely, and dangerously.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deadly heat of up to 44C is searing southern Europe, as scientists warn of a \u201cmolotov cocktail\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-335977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115010702203256437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}