‘Monster’ wildfires rip through Europe as heatwave set to spread further

Wildfires continued to rage across western Europe after a heatwave has brought scorching temperatures exceeding 40C.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes while forests and grasslands have burned in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Over the past 10 days, the total area burned by wildfires in France, Spain and Portugal has exceeded 40,000 hectares, according to the European Union. This is equivalent to at least 75 football fields.

On Tuesday, when many European countries were expecting record-breaking temperatures, officials said there was a “very extreme danger” of wildfires, according to heat maps distributed by Copernicus Emergency Management Service.

The heatwave has also hit Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.

In France, meteorologists have issued extreme heat warnings. The western city of Nantes recorded a high of 42C on Monday for the first time since 1949 and Paris has been expected to swelter in 39C on Tuesday.

More than 2,000 firefighters from across the country had rushed to the southwest region of Gironde to battle three wildfires – two large and one small – that destroyed at least 19,300 hectares of land.

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About 37,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes. Those evacuated on Monday included 74 residents of a retirement home and animals from a zoo.

The nearby town of Cazaux recorded 42C on Monday, the highest since its weather station opened in 1921.

Jean-Luc Gleyze, Gironde’s regional president, said: “Because of the temperature, because of the wind, because of the lack of water in the air... it’s a monster and it’s very difficult to fight against it.”

Police in Gironde have detained a man for questioning following suspicions that one of the wildfires, south of Bordeaux, was deliberately caused on 12 July.

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In Finistère, on the east coast of France, fires had decimated more than 700 acres of land and several villages had to be evacuated.

An elderly couple died on Monday after their charred vehicle overturned in a car accident while they tried to flee wildfires in the north of Portugal.

Several villages were evacuated as a fire spread in the northern Murça area, where a local mayor said more than 3,000 hectares have burned.

Wildfires have also been sparked in central parts of Portugal, such as in the Leiria province – where a blaze last week threatened the village of Memoria while temperatures hit a July record of 47C in some parts.

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Most of the country has been placed under warning by the national meteorological office IPMA.

The north of Spain recorded temperatures of 43C on Monday while wildfires swept the central region of Castile and Léon, as well as the northern region of Galicia.

In the Zamora of northwestern Spain, a man called Angel Martin Arjona – who tried to dig a firebreak trench to protect the village of Tabara – managed to escape a field of flames that had engulfed him. He has been airlifted to hospital for severe burns.

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Two people – a firefighter and a sheep farmer – were killed by forest fires in the Zamora region and trains in the area were halted because of fire near the tracks.

More than 70,000 hectares have been destroyed in Spain because of fires this year, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday, which he said “is almost double the last decade’s average.”

In the UK, firefighters said on Monday that they had attended 24 wildfires in 48 hours in England and Wales – double the number recorded in all of July last year – while the country expected record-breaking temperatures of up to 40C.

Elsewhere, wildfires have been sparked in Greece’s island Crete as well as parts of northern Morocco, mainly in the mountainous areas of the Larache and Taza provinces.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry – who is set to chair UN climate talks in November – called on rich and developing countries to show readiness to compromise over demands that richer nations provide $100bn (£83bn) in climate aid each year, a target meant to be reached by 2020.