More than 40 people killed as wildfires rage in nine Mediterranean countries in record heatwave

More than 40 people have died in wildfires that have engulfed swaths of land in nine Mediterranean countries, destroying homes, livelihoods and forests.

Thousands of firefighters worked to contain the blazes as searing temperatures scorched parts of Greece, Italy, Spain, Gran Canaria, Portugal, Turkey, Croatia and France, as well as Algeria and Tunisia.

Authorities ordered the fresh evacuations of several communities in central Greece on Wednesday as they battled new fronts in the fires that have been spreading for 10 days.

High winds hampered firefighting efforts, and combined with the heatwave, they created a “perfect storm” that allowed flames to spread.

Sixty-one wildfires erupted across Greece in just 24 hours, the fire brigade said, with the worst outbreaks near the central town of Velestino, where officials ordered precautionary evacuations.

Follow our live coverage of the wildfires and heatwave here

But as Athens recorded 40C and northern Turkey 43C, there were hopes the mercury may now have peaked.

The entire island of Rhodes, where more than 20,000 holidaymakers and locals were forced to flee at the weekend, was put into a state of emergency.

At least seven people have been killed in Italy, which suffered extreme heat in the south and violent storms in the north, and in Algeria, 34 people including 10 soldiers have been killed by flames or smoke in recent days.

Those fires also spread to forests in Tunisia, where some cities recorded 49C this week.

On the island of Sicily, two elderly people were found dead in a home consumed by flames near Palermo airport, which had been closed temporarily because of encroaching flames, according to news reports.

Another woman died after fires prevented an ambulance from reaching her home.

Homes and hotels were also evacuated in the Italian regions of Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria.

It comes after two Greek pilots were killed in a crash during a low-altitude water drop on Tuesday.

The wildfires have released record greenhouse gas emissions this month, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) said. The megaton of carbon was nearly double the previous record, set in 2007.

Fire crews have been battling more than 500 fires for almost two weeks.

Several people have been arrested or fined for accidentally starting fires, but scientists and EU officials say the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires is down to the climate crisis.

Without human-induced climate change, wildfires would have been extremely rare, according to World Weather Attribution, a global team of scientists.

On Rhodes, a nature reserve was damaged, and fires also burned in Vati and Gennadi.

“The fires have started again,” a fire official told The Independent. “A little wind and the fire returns … that’s the problem.”

Dozens of firefighters were trying to tame a firefront in the south.

Greece’s civil protection agency extended its state of emergency to the whole of Rhodes for six months “to deal with emergencies and manage the consequences of catastrophic forestry fire”, minister Vasilis Papageorgiou said.

In the sleepy town of Malonas, volunteers ventured out again to try to keep the fires at bay – having fought back the flames as they approached the night before.

“We have no energy, we have no power – not enough to stop this ... We are waiting for the wind to calm down to try again tonight to finish the job, but it is very difficult because after 10 days everyone is very tired,” said a volunteer named Panos.

However, a “level 5” alert on Crete on Tuesday was dropped to level 4 on Wednesday, and one fire official said the wildfires that had raged across Greece for more than a week abated on Wednesday.

The Greek government tried to contain damage to the reputation of its tourism industry. Tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni stressed that wildfires had affected only a small part of the island.

A fire brigade spokesperson, Ioannis Artopoios, said tackling the fires was a significant financial burden for Greece, with firefighting on Rhodes alone costing about €7.5m (£6.4m) so far.

In Italy, the government was meeting to declare a state of emergency in regions worst hit and introduce a furlough scheme for workers most exposed to the heatwave.

The country’s firefighters said they had battled nearly 1,400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday, including 650 in Sicily and 390 in Calabria, where a bedridden 98-year-old man was killed as flames consumed his home.

Planes were also trying to douse the flames on the hills around Palermo on Wednesday.

In Croatia, water-dropping planes and more than 100 firefighters held back a blaze before it reached houses in the walled town of Dubrovnik.

In Portugal, more than 500 firefighters tackled a blaze near Lisbon. Around 90 people were forced to leave their homes, along with 800 animals taken from farms under threat.