France’s heatwave has peaked at 40°C, as throughout the country, and for the second time in less than a month, dozens of square miles of parched forest have been reduced to smouldering ashes by wildfires spreading rapidly amid a record drought and a new heat wave, once again forcing thousands of people to evacuate, New York Times reports.
“Since June, our country has been facing exceptional fires,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said on Thursday during a visit to Hostens, a small town in the southwestern region of Gironde, which has endured the worst of the recent blazes.
Ms. Borne announced a reinforcement of firefighting equipment and a set of new measures to “prepare for events that we know are also linked to climate change.”
The wildfires, which have torn through several regions near the Atlantic coast and parts of the south, have resulted in a tragic repetition of the scenes observed last month, when France was first engulfed by extreme blazes. Fire trucks raced back and forth under black-and-orange skies, as water-dropping planes flew overhead. Residents frantically left their homes, dark smoke billowing in the background.
But the havoc caused by the wildfires in France is just the latest consequence of a series of heat waves that has been scorching Europe this summer, highlighting how vulnerable countries in the West are to the new reality of extreme weather as it challenges cities’ climate change mitigation plans and plagues entire regions with water shortages.
Barely three weeks after extreme temperatures first baked the continent’s capitals, shattering records in Britain, a heat wave is again engulfing Europe’s west this week, the New York Times revealed.
According to the report by AFP, France’s heatwave has seen half of the western metropolitan territory experiencing strong heat this Friday with strong thunderstorms.
France’s heatwave has seen 19 departments in the west of the country placed in heat wave orange vigilance this Friday. They were already affected by the alert the day before, AFP reports.
The affected departments are Finistère, Morbihan, Loire-Atlantique, Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, Charente-Maritime, Charente, Gironde, Dordogne, Lot, Lot-et -Garonne, Landes, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Haute-Vienne and Tarn.
An active stormy-rainy passage will sweep the coasts of Corsica with heavy rainfall, hail and gusts of wind this Friday evening and overnight. Consequently, the two departments of the island, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, are placed by Météo-France in storm orange vigilance, the report revealed.
These storms will be “strong, sometimes violent, accompanied by great electrical activity and very high rainfall intensities (…), very often hail and strong gusts of wind”, details the meteorological institute.
On Saturday, temperatures will remain scorching in the west of the country. From the Toulouse South to Brittany, the maximum will often be between 35 and 38 degrees.
Salome Robles