Forest fires fanned by high winds and hot, dry weather damaged some holiday homes in Turkey as a lingering heatwave that has cooked much of Europe led authorities to raise warnings and tourists to find ways to beat the heat on Monday.
A heat dome hovered over an arc from France, Portugal and Spain to Turkey, while data from European forecasters suggested other countries were set to broil further in coming days. New highs are expected on Wednesday before rain is forecast to bring respite to some areas later this week.
"Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal,” tweeted U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres from Seville, Spain, where temperatures were expected to hit 42˚C on Monday afternoon.
Reiterating his frequent calls for action to fight climate change, Guterres added: "The planet is getting hotter & more dangerous — no country is immune.”
In Portugal — his home country — one reading on Sunday turned up a suspected record-high June temperature of 46.6˚C in Mora, about 100 kilometres east of Lisbon. Weather officials were working to confirm whether that marked a new record.
Portuguese authorities issued a red heat warning Monday for seven of 18 districts as temperatures were forecast to hit 43˚C .
The first heatwave of the year has gripped Spain since the weekend and no relief is expected until Thursday, Spain’s national weather service said Monday. The country appeared to hit a new high for June on Saturday when 46˚C was tallied in the southern province of Huelva.
In France, which was almost entirely sweltering in the heatwave on Monday and where air conditioning remains relatively rare, local and national authorities were taking extra effort to care for homeless and elderly people and people working outside.
Some tourists were putting off plans for some rigorous outdoor activities.
"We were going to do a bike tour today actually, but we decided because it was gonna be so warm not to do the bike tour," said Andrea Tyson, 46, who was visiting Paris from New Philadelphia, Ohio, on Sunday. Misting stations doused passers-by along the Seine in the French capital.
France’s first significant forest fires of the season consumed 400 hectares (988 acres) of woods Sunday and Monday in the Aude region in the south. Water-dumping planes and some 300 firefighters were mobilized, the regional emergency service said. Tourists were evacuated from one campground in the area.
In Turkey, forest fires fanned by strong winds damaged some holiday homes in Izmir’s Doganbey region and forced the temporary closure of the airport in Izmir, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Authorities evacuated four villages as a precaution, the Forestry Ministry said.
In Italy, the Health Ministry put 21 cities under its level three "red” alert, which indicates "emergency conditions with possible negative effects” on healthy, active people as well as at-risk old people, children and chronically ill people.
Regional governments in northwestern Liguria and southern Sicily in Italy put restrictions on outdoor work, such as construction and agricultural labor, during the peak heat hours.
The mercury was rising farther north, too.
Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, said the Wimbledon Championships were facing what could be their hottest start on record — with temperatures of just under 30˚C recorded at the nearby Kew Gardens.
Tennis enthusiasts fanned themselves or sought shade from the blazing sun as the first day of matches got underway at the All England Club on Monday. Tournament rules allow players to take a 10-minute break when the heat hits 30.1 degrees Celsius or more in mid-match.
In southern Germany, temperatures of up to 35˚C were expected on Monday, and they were forecast to creep higher until midweek — going as high as 39˚C on Wednesday.
Some German towns and regions imposed limits on how much water can be taken from rivers and lakes.
Associated Press