Firefighters battling to control ‘monster’ fire in France

EUROPEAN nations sent firefighting teams to help France tackle a “monster” wildfire yesterday, while forest blazes also raged in Spain and Portugal, and the head of the European Space Agency urged immediate action to combat climate change.

More than 1000 firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes, battled for a third day a fire that has forced thousands from their homes and scorched thousands of hectares of forest in France’s south-western Gironde region.

With a dangerous cocktail of blistering temperatures, tinder-box conditions and wind fanning the flames, emergency services were struggling to bring the fire under control.

“It’s an ogre, a monster,” said Gregory Allione from the French firefighters body FNSPF.

Heatwaves, floods and crumbling glaciers in recent weeks have heightened concerns over climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather across the globe. The head of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said rising land temperatures and shrinking rivers as measured from space left no doubt about the toll on agriculture and other industries of climate change.

ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite series has measured “extreme” land surface temperatures of more than 45°C in Britain, 50°C in France and 60°C in Spain in recent weeks.

“It’s pretty bad. We have seen extremes that have not been observed before,” said Aschbacher.

In Romania, where record temperatures and drought have drained rivers of water, Greenpeace activists protested on the parched banks of the Danube to draw attention to global warming and urge the government to lower emissions.

With successive heatwaves baking Europe this summer, searing temperatures and unprecedented droughts, renewed focus has been placed on climate change risks to farming, industry and livelihoods. Severe drought is set to slash the EU’s maize harvest by 15%, dropping it to a 15-year low, just as Europeans contend with higher food prices as a result of lower-than-normal grain exports from Russia and Ukraine.

Swiss army helicopters have been drafted in to airlift water to thirsty cows, pigs and goats sweltering under a fierce sun in the country’s Alpine meadows.

In France, suffering its harshest drought on record, trucks are delivering water to dozens of villages where taps have run dry, nuclear power stations have received waivers to keep pumping hot discharge water into rivers, and farmers warn that a fodder shortfall may lead to milk shortages.

In Germany, scant rainfall this summer has drained the water levels of the Rhine, the country’s commercial artery, hampering shipping and pushing up freight costs.

Britain’s Met Office yesterday issued a four-day “extreme heat” warning for parts of England and Wales. In Portugal, more than 1 500 firefighters spent a sixth day fighting a wildfire in the central Covilha region that has burned 10 500 hectares, including parts of the Serra da Estrela national park.

In Spain, electrical storms triggered new wildfires and hundreds of people were evacuated from the path of one blaze in the province of Caceres.

Macron’s office said extra firefighting aircraft were arriving from Greece and Sweden, while Germany, Austria, Romania and Poland were all deploying firefighters to help tackle wildfires in France. “European solidarity at work!” Macron tweeted.

Firefighters said they had managed to save the village of Belin-Beliet, which emptied after police told residents to evacuate as the flames approached.

“We’ve been lucky. Our houses were saved. But you see the catastrophe over there. Some houses could not be saved,” said resident Gaetan. | Reuters