Europe is confronting devastating out-of-control wildfires as temperatures have surged to 40C (104F) during a new scorching heatwave.
Hundreds of firefighters are battling forest infernos in France, Spain, and Portugal, where fires have consumed more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land. In Portugal, emergency services reported controlling 80 percent of a wildfire in the north of the country that had spread across 13,000 hectares and injured nine people. Spanish and Italian reinforcements, including water-carrying planes, were dispatched after Portugal appealed for assistance.
In France, nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from a campsite in Sainte-Marie-la-Mer near the Spanish border as flames destroyed dozens of mobile homes. The airport in nearby Perpignan was temporarily closed. Approximately 600 firefighters are working to contain a wildfire that has burned over 1,000 hectares on a mountainside at Trevillach, east of Perpignan, while another 300 are tackling a fire in the Drome region in the southeast.
Northeastern Spain has seen more than 2,200 hectares burned near the Costa Brava coast. A man has been arrested in connection with this blaze.
Authorities have registered over 4,000 excess deaths in the wake of an earlier heatwave in June. France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez expressed concern that the annual summer wildfire season has begun a month earlier than usual.
Temperatures are expected to remain high, with the latest heatwave forecast to move north and potentially last until the end of the week. Experts from the World Weather Attribution group noted that recent heatwaves in May and June would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change. Fire service officials are urging the public to take precautions to prevent new fires, emphasizing that the wildfire season is expected to be long.