Wildfires rage across Europe amid record temperatures | CBC News
Fire brigades in Tuscany battled a wildfire on Wednesday that forced hundreds to evacuate as gas tanks caught in the flames exploded, while smoke from a blaze in northeast Italy forced shipbuilder Fincantieri to shut down a plant employing 3,000.
Wildfires have broken out in several parts of Italy this week as temperatures keep rising. Emergency services battled wildfires across swathes of southern Europe after a record-breaking heatwave, widely blamed on global warming by scientists and climatologists, settled in last week.
Nine cities were on Italy’s highest heatwave alert, which warns of serious health risks linked to the weather, up from five on Tuesday. The total is expected to rise to 14 on Thursday, including Rome, Milan and Florence, and 16 on Friday.
Temperatures are forecast to hit 40 C across a swath of the north and centre this week, as well as in Puglia in the south and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.
On Wednesday, a fire that broke out on Monday evening near the Tuscan town of Lucca continued to burn, having already destroyed some 600 hectares of woods.
It forced around 500 people to evacuate as the flames raged through the night reaching some villages and causing some liquefied gas tanks to explode, the region’s governor Eugenio Giani said on Twitter.
“Some fronts have strengthened because of the wind,” Giani said.
In the northeastern Friuli Venezia Giulia region, residents were urged to stay indoors because of heavy smoke from a wildfire that started on Tuesday in the Carso area bordering Croatia and Slovenia.
The fire prompted state-owned shipbuilder Fincantieri to close down its plant in the port city of Monfalcone.
Hospital, homes evacuated in Greece
A blaze fuelled by gale-force winds raged in in Greece, forcing hundreds including hospital patients to evacuate.
In Greece, thick clouds of smoke darkened the sky over Mount Penteli 27 km north of Athens, where close to 500 firefighters, 120 fire engines and 15 water-carrying planes tried to contain a blaze that broke out on Tuesday and continued to burn on several fronts.
Authorities said they evacuated nine settlements. One hospital and the National Observatory of Athens were also evacuated and police helped at least 600 residents out of fire-stricken areas.
“Due to the intensity and speed of the winds, the fire constantly changed direction throughout the night,” said Fire Department spokesperson Yiannis Artopios in a televised statement.
Strong winds were forecast to persist until Wednesday afternoon.
Last year, wildfires ravaged forest and bushland in different parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heatwave in 30 years.
Macron to visit damaged French region
In France, where firefighters in the southwestern Gironde region have been battling since July 12 to contain huge forest fires, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said more money needed to be invested to tackle such threats.
“We are having to confront a quite exceptional situation,” he said, referring to damage caused in Brittany and southern France.
President Emmanuel Macron was due to visit the Gironde region on Wednesday as local authorities said improved weather conditions as France’s heatwave moved east were helping the battle to contain the flames.
Portugal’s northern region’s Civil Protection commander Armando Silva said rising temperatures and strong winds would make it harder to fight the country’s largest wildfire, which has burned 10,000 to 12,000 hectares since Sunday in and around the municipality of Murça.
In Spain, where emergency crews were tackling fires in five regions, national weather service AEMET also forecast higher temperatures.
That 40 C mark was topped in Britain for the first time on Tuesday, shattering the country’s previous temperature record by 1.6 degrees.
British engineers raced on Wednesday to fix train tracks that had buckled in the heat after firefighters, who in London endured their busiest day since the Second World War on Tuesday, worked through the night to damp down wildfires.
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