Fires have broken out in several parts of Italy this week as temperatures continue to rise. Emergency services battled wildfires in parts of southern Europe after a record-breaking heat wave, widely blamed for global warming by scientists and climatologists, settled in last week. Italy’s highest heat alert, which warns of severe weather-related health risks, was issued in nine cities, up from five on Tuesday. The total is expected to rise to 14 on Thursday, including Rome, Milan and Florence, and 16 on Friday. Temperatures are forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius in an area of the north and center this week, as well as Puglia in the south and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. On Wednesday, a fire that broke out on Monday night near the Tuscan town of Lucca continued to burn, having already destroyed around 600 hectares of woods. It forced about 500 people to relocate as the flames raged through the night, reaching some villages and causing some gas tanks to explode, regional governor Eugenio Giani said on Twitter. Firefighters try to put out a fire near the town of Massarossa in Tuscany, Italy on Wednesday. (Federico Scoppa/AFP/Getty Images) “Some fronts have strengthened because of the wind,” Giani said. Meanwhile, the local administration in northeastern Friuli Venezia Giulia prepared to extend a fire alert to the entire region after a fire started on Tuesday in the Carso region bordering Croatia and Slovenia. Residents were told to stay indoors on Wednesday because of thick smoke, and state shipbuilder Fincantieri closed a factory employing 3,000 people in the Adriatic port city of Monfalcone. A helicopter flies over a wildfire in Jamiano, Italy on Wednesday. Nine cities in Italy are on the highest heat alert in the country. that number is expected to reach 16 by Friday. (Borut Zibulovic/Reuters) As the fire crossed the border into Slovenia, residents of four villages threatened by the flames were told to evacuate their homes, Italian media reported. Trieste Mayor Roberto DiPiazza told a local television channel that parts of the city of about 200,000 could soon stop receiving electricity, without elaborating why, and that this would affect the water supply because pumps would not be able to to operate.
Hospital, houses evacuated in Greece
In Greece, thick smoke darkened the sky over Mount Penteli, 27km north of Athens, where nearly 500 firefighters, 120 fire engines and 15 seaplanes managed to control the spread of a blaze fueled by gusty winds. Authorities said they evacuated nine settlements and a hospital, and police helped at least 600 residents out of the fire zones. Strong winds are expected to persist in the area through Thursday. Firefighters are seen behind a burning house during the fire in Pikermi, north of Athens, on Wednesday. (Aris Oikonomou/AFP/Getty Images) “Yesterday’s fire in the Penteli area had all the characteristics of a situation that was very difficult to manage,” Citizen Protection Minister Christos Stylianidis said in a televised statement later Wednesday. “The fire is now under control.” Last year, fires ravaged forests and scrubland in various parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heat wave in 30 years.
Macron visits the devastated French region
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the country’s worst-hit Gironde region in the southwest, as local authorities said improving weather conditions as France’s heat wave moved east were helping the battle to contain the flames. Macron met with firefighters who have been battling the flames for a week. French firefighters have created huge blazes through threatened forests, using heavy machinery to uproot trees and roots, leaving large barren strips to stop the fires. French President Emmanuel Macron meets firefighters at a field command post in La Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon, on Wednesday. (Bob Edme/Reuters) Gironde fire chief Marc Vermeulen briefed the president on their dire efforts to contain the fire. “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said, noting that 20-year-old pines “explode in extreme heat.” Macron said climate change was leading to more fires and would force France and the European Union to take “structural decisions … in the coming years”. This photo provided by the fire department of the Gironde region shows a burnt pine forest near Landrias, southwestern France, on Tuesday. (SDIS 33/The Associated Press) While the cold weather has also given firefighters in Spain and Portugal a breather, temperatures are forecast to climb back into the 40s in the coming days. The Civil Protection commander of Portugal’s northern region, Armando Silva, said rising temperatures and strong winds would make it difficult to fight the country’s biggest fire, which has burned 10,000 to 12,000 hectares since Sunday in and around the municipality. Murca. In Spain, a wave of fires in the northwestern region of Galicia burned 85 houses and forced the relocation of 1,400 people. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the region late Tuesday and warned of “difficult days here in Galicia and in the rest of Spain.” That 40C mark was topped in Britain for the first time on Tuesday, smashing the country’s previous record temperature by 1.6 degrees. British engineers raced on Wednesday to repair train tracks bent in the heat after firefighters, who in London endured their busiest day since World War Two on Tuesday, worked through the night to put out the blazes. Villagers look at burnt houses after a fire in A Veiga de Cascalla, near O Barco de Valdeorras, in northern Spain, on Tuesday. (Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty Images)
