Hundreds of firefighters across southern Europe on Sunday battled wildfires that sent residents fleeing their homes in the middle of the night and threatened to disrupt a stage of the Tour de France cycling race, as temperatures rose again in the heatwave-scarred region.
The infernos have devastated more than 19,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land — an area more than twice the size of Manhattan — across Portugal, Spain, France and Greece, with temperatures predicted to reach 40˚C in places.
"We started seeing smoke around 10:30 pm, then it kept coming closer and closer. Someone from the town hall knocked on our door around 1:00 am to tell us to leave," said Charlotte Pignol, 30, who was evacuated from her home in southern France near the city of Perpignan.
"There were fire trucks everywhere, and the smell of smoke was overwhelming," she said.
The blazes come shortly after a heatwave in June, one of Europe's worst, during which thousands of excess deaths were registered and which would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.
With the mercury set to rise again in the coming days, authorities expressed alarm that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.
"Climate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July," said French fire service Colonel Eric Belgioino as he appealed to people near the Pyrenees inferno to take precautions to avoid starting fires. "The season is going to be long for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us," he pleaded.
POISONOUS CLOUD
In Greece, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in Thessaloniki in the north of the country, forcing authorities to evacuate the surrounding area.
Thick black smoke pouring out of a recycling plant and a neighbouring oil treatment complex spread across Greece's second city. Authorities warned householders to keep their windows closed because of the risk of poisoning.
In Spain, a fire near the northeastern Costa Brava coast burned more than 2,200 hectares in two days and firefighters said their efforts would be "complicated" by rising temperatures and the many "smoking hotspots" within the fire's perimeter.
In France, more than 700 French firefighters tried to contain a wildfire that threatened Monday's third stage of the Tour de France cycling race through the Pyrenees.
The fire has burned more than 1,500 hectares on a mountainside at Trevillach, about 70 km from where Monday's cycle race ends.
Government prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe said a decision would be taken Sunday on whether the stage across the Spanish border would go ahead as planned.
HEAT ALERTS
Roads in the region have been closed and the authorities have opened emergency shelters for people forced to flee their homes.
Another 300 French firefighters battled another fire in a mountainous district of the southeastern Drome department.
In Portugal, emergency services said they had controlled "80 per cent" of a wildfire that has devastated some 13,000 hectares of forest and scrub land in the north of the country.
Elsewhere, major fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub land on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, authorities said.
Regions across Portugal, Spain and southern France have stepped up heat alerts for the coming days.
On Monday the latest heatwave was expected to move north, with forecasters saying it could last until next weekend.
Following a two-week surge in temperatures in June, France said there had been more than 2,000 extra deaths than usual in just one week, while Spain and Belgium each reported more than 1,000.
Agence France-Presse