in France A red code has been declared in 15 out of 97 circles (excluding abroad). It was hot for days, and it recorded 41 degrees in the south of the country yesterday. Temperatures could rise in the coming days.
And the French weather services warn that “the heat will be the end of the world in certain areas in the southwest.” Warnings are issued in several places about high concentrations of ozone in the air.
Extreme temperatures are also accompanied by wildfires in the southwest of the country. In the southwestern province of the Gironde around Bordeaux, two major fires have already destroyed more than 14,000 hectares of forest and other vegetation. More than 16,000 people have been evacuated as a result of the bushfires. Because the winds changed direction, thousands of other people would have to be evacuated. In a village in the Gironde this will be about 8000 inhabitants. Also, a thousand animals from the Arcachon Zoo have been moved to safer places as a precaution. The fires are mainly raging south of Arcachon Bay. France deployed three additional firefighting aircraft and hundreds of additional firefighters to fight the fires. It will be a “decisive day” for the Gironde, but also for the regions of Brittany, the Loire Valley and Occitanie (Languedoc).
But it is not only the French countryside that is on fire, fires are also burning in the forests of many other countries in the Mediterranean, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia and also in Turkey and North Africa. The area had been groaning in the heat for an entire week, leaving nature completely dry.
