July 14, 2022 Tourists view smoke on the shores of Arcacon due to wildfires near La Testé in southwestern France. Olivier Maureen / AFP by Getty Images
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Europe is in the grip of a climate-related heat wave, which has sparked a catastrophic fire from the west of Portugal to eastern Turkey.
EU Commissioner Maros Shefikovich warned last Thursday that 2022 could be one of the continent’s worst years of drought and wildfires due to climate change. The final peak temperatures will occur in less than a month before the continent catches fire in early June.
“Statistics show that since 2017 we have had the worst wildfires in Europe, and sadly, we expect the 2022 forest fires to follow this trend,” Chefchovich said.
The speech immediately became prophetic. In a week’s time, dozens of fires are burning in Portugal, with record-breaking temperatures, according to BBC News. Six hundred people were forced to flee their homes in Lria.
”[E]Adelino Rodriguez, a 77-year-old farmer, told the BBC in central Portugal. “It seemed like the end of the world.”
From Wednesday to Wednesday, the fire burned more than 7,400 hectares, according to AP News. Wildfires are a common occurrence in Portugal, which killed more than 100 people in 2017. Since then, the country has worked to improve forest management to prevent fire and death. However, this summer the hot air from Africa is rising on the Iberian Peninsula. The thermometer is expected to hit 46 degrees Celsius on Wednesday and Thursday in Alento, and 96 percent of the country has been experiencing severe drought since the end of June. Modified policy has been successful in preventing fires since 2017, but the body has been found in a crematorium in the northern Avero region, the BBC reports.
According to Metro, 75-year-old Leah retired Joachim Gomez: “I have no recollection of what is happening today.
A wildfire is also raging in neighboring Spain, and a fire broke out on Tuesday in the western province of Ekaterinburg and spread to Salamanca, Castil and Lyon, Reuters reported. It burned 9,900 acres and displaced 49 children in a summer camp on Thursday. More than 400 people were forced to flee the blaze on Tuesday, AP News reported.
Most of Spain was on high alert on Wednesday, with the hottest day of the year expected today, the BBC reported. But before the recent heat wave and wildfires, the country witnessed unusual fires – almost double the average hectare over the past decade, between January 1 and July 3.
The current heat wave is initially closed in Spain and Portugal, but is expected to expand, Metro reported.
“It is affecting large areas of Europe and will continue to do so,” said Clare Nulis, a spokesman for the World Meteorological Organization.
Two fires have broken out in nearly 4,000 hectares of land in southwestern France, and nearly 1,000 firefighters are working to contain the blaze.
“The fire is still out of control,” said a local official with the Gironde department, Reuters reported on Thursday.
The fire broke out on Tuesday. The first forced 500 people south of Bordeaux. Second, it evacuated some 10,000 people from camps on the Atlantic coast on Wednesday and Thursday.
“Other camps woke us up at 4:30 p.m. We had to leave immediately and choose what to do with us, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
There were three major wildfires off the coast of Croatia, Reuters reported on Thursday. At one point, flames engulfed the church wall for a short time, and residents fled in rubber boats, AP News reported.
The blaze in the southwestern Turkish city of Datka on Wednesday left 450 homes and 3,530 people dead, Reuters reported. But officials say they have now been arrested.
An assessment of severe weather conditions shows that rising tides are a risk factor for climate change. Another study published last week in Nature shows that the temperature in Europe is three to four times faster. This is due in part to the fact that the jet stream has been split in half for a long time.
Columbia University Climate Scientist and co-author Kai Cornhuber told Reuters that Europe was suffering from climate change. “It’s a heat wave point.”
And heat waves give rise to wildfires. The United Nations has warned that wildfires will increase by 30 percent and 50 percent by 2050, mainly due to fossil fuels.
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