Wildfires, drought and storms hound Europe even as heatwave recedes
(Date line corrected to Ejea)
Guillermo Martinez and Violeta Santos Moura
EJEA DE LOS CABALLEROS, Spain, July 17 (Reuters) – Firefighters backed by 30 planes battled on Friday to contain a wildfire in northeastern Spain that has ripped through an area the size of San Francisco and forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 people as recent heat waves left vegetation drying out across much of Europe.
Successive early summer heat waves, which many scientists blame on human-caused climate change, have raised temperatures to unprecedented levels across large swaths of the continent, causing water shortages, crop damage, wildfires and thousands of more deaths than usual.
According to the Reuters Climate Monitor, the average high temperature across Western Europe on Friday is forecast to be 27.5 degrees Celsius (81.5 degrees Fahrenheit); This is 4.2 C above the normal high from July 17, 1961-1990.
In France, drought has worsened day by day since the end of May as the last heat wave continues to abate, according to MeteoFrance. High temperatures are expected to remain mostly limited to the southeast over the weekend.
A gas-fired power plant in southern France was at risk of going offline as high temperatures in the Mediterranean limited access to cooling water and put further pressure on the energy system, which was already facing declining nuclear production due to warmer river waters.
In Germany, shallow water at the key point of the Rhine has hindered shipping and caused shipping costs to rise, but rain has helped levels rise and are expected to rise further in the coming days.
STORMS INCREASE CONCERNS
As the temperatures decreased and sometimes caused severe storms, two people lost their lives in the central and eastern parts of France, and one person died as a result of falling trees or being struck by lightning in Germany’s southern state of Baden-Württemberg.
The “supercell” storm brought strong winds and hail of up to 5 cm (2 in); Drivers took shelter under a motorway bridge outside Stuttgart due to hail. State residents are being told to expect severe weather on Friday.
In northeastern Germany, firefighters were hoping for rain to extinguish a forest fire that has been burning for nearly a week in Mueritz National Park; Their efforts were hampered by unexploded ordnance at a former military training facility.
SPAIN IS ON FIRE
Spain’s weather agency AEMET warned that temperatures will start to rise again on Saturday, with top temperatures potentially reaching 42-44 C in the Andalusia and La Mancha regions next week. Forecasters also warned of an extreme risk of bushfires as hot, dry air from North Africa spreads across large parts of the country.
A forest fire near Ores in the northeastern region of Aragon spread over 12,000 hectares (46.33 square miles) overnight; 300 military emergency response teams have been deployed to control the fire, and helicopters are operating in constant rotation, sometimes loading water onto five aircraft at once.
Firefighters were also battling wildfires near Madrid and in the state of Guadalajara, where about 1,500 hectares were burned and a summer camp was evacuated as a precaution. A week ago, one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires on record killed at least 13 people, mostly foreigners, in the southern province of Almeria.
MORE DEATHS
Last week, the World Health Organization warned that Europe could face “deadlier weeks ahead” due to new heat waves over the Atlantic.
Thousands more deaths than usual were recorded during the heatwave that ravaged Europe and Britain at the end of June, scientists tracking so-called excess deaths said.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr. “There are almost 10,000 excess deaths and the summer is not over yet,” said Hans Henri P. Kluge, criticizing governments for “treating the heat as a weather event and not as a health emergency” despite existing tools and WHO guidance to prevent many of these deaths.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo in Madrid, Miranda Murray in Germany, Dominique Vidalon and Forrest Crellinin in Paris, Jennifer Rigby in London, Writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
