After temperatures broke records in Britain on Tuesday, the extreme heat is moving east across the continent, leaving a trail of destruction in many rural areas and revealing a lack of preparedness, even in some of Europe’s biggest cities.
In Germany, Hungary and Italy, temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (almost 38 degrees Celsius) are forecast today or in the coming days.
The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) said 19 European countries were “extremely vulnerable” to wildfires on Wednesday, across an area stretching from Portugal and Spain in the south-west to Albania and Turkey in the south-east.
On the outskirts of the Greek capital Athens, firefighters are battling huge blazes that have seen wind whip up flames and smoke, hampering containment efforts. At least 600 people have been evacuated, including from a children’s hospital, authorities said.
“Our top priority remains the protection of human life. But also protecting vital public infrastructure and citizens’ property,” Greek Fire Brigade spokesman Ioannis Artopoios said during a television briefing in the early hours of Wednesday.
Despite the efforts of hundreds of firefighters, huge plumes of smoke remain visible across the city on Wednesday. Romanian firefighters were drafted to support the operation.
Fires are also being fought in parts of Italy. Wildfires in Tuscany exploded gas tanks and forced evacuations overnight. according to to the Regional President Eugenio Giani. In Alsdorf, western Germany, three residents and two firefighters were injured in a fire on Tuesday, and much of the country is braced for more blazes as temperatures soar on Wednesday.
In France, planes continued to pour water over burning landscapes. Fires have been raging there for a week, although they have spread “very little” in the Gironde region, according to local authorities on Tuesday evening. Smoke swirled over the Brennilis nuclear power plant in Brittany on Wednesday morning.
There has been some respite in the UK, where temperatures fell back into the 20s from an all-time high of 40.3C (104.5F) on Tuesday. However, some residential areas around London were left in ruins after fires broke out in parts of the capital, pushing fire services to their limits.
“Yesterday was the busiest day for fire services in London since the Second World War,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Sky News on Wednesday. London had no available fire engines at one point in the afternoon amid unprecedented demand, a senior firefighter from the London Fire Brigade’s dedicated rescue team told CNN.
“Apocalyptic” scenes in which Europe adapts to the new reality
As countries in the region address the immediate effects of extreme heat, many are also grappling with a climate reality that has brought new risks to the continent.
Hot records are outpacing cool records by more than 10 to 1 worldwide this year, according to data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As of July 16, 188 all-time heat records versus 18 cold records have been broken worldwide. Studies have shown that extreme heat will increase in frequency, intensity and duration due to the climate crisis. “We’re learning the hard way that we need to better prepare and protect our forests and soils to stop living these nightmares every summer!” Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Residents in some hard-hit regions of Europe have attacked their leaders as extreme temperatures ravaged their areas.
A campground owner told CNN affiliate BFMTV on Tuesday that “we have demands” on President Emmanuel Macron, who will visit the devastated southwest on Wednesday.
“We hope that he can very quickly direct the public services to help us, assist us with the administrative steps to get the campsite up and running as soon as possible,” Stephane Carella, co-owner of Pyla Camping said through its site fires was destroyed.
“Everything went up in smoke,” he said, with about 90% of his property affected by the fire. Carella described the remains of the site as “apocalyptic”.
As of Tuesday, the risk of forest fires in Britain was not being considered by politicians or residents. But many places in southern England were engulfed in smoke during the country’s hottest day on record.
A resident of Wennington, a London suburb hit by a fire on Tuesday, told CNN that the gardens on his street were “like a tinderbox” in the days leading up to the fire.
Stock lost his home, eight chickens and two beehives when the fire broke out.
“I did not sleep last night. I was in the hotel room thinking how bad it could have gotten,” he said. “I just thank God everyone got out alive.”
He added: “We lost everything. But when we come back, we can clear the site, put up some fences, get some RVs, and we’ll start over.”
CNN’s Elinda Labropoulou, Chris Stern, Nina dos Santos, Robert Shackleford, Madalena Araujo, Alex Hardie, Bianca Nobilo and Joseph Ataman contributed coverage.