France has been obliged to call in troops from across Europe to assist in the fight against a massive wildfire that has been raging in the country’s south for more than a month.
Hundreds of firefighters from Germany, Poland, Romania, and Italy are heading to Gironde, near Bordeaux, to help fight a blaze that started in early July as Europe’s record-breaking summer heatwave began, before reigniting several days ago, displacing 10,000 people and burning 7,000 hectares of pine forest.
Water-bombing aircraft are also being sent from Greece and Sweden to assist in extinguishing the flames, as residents describe biblical images. Valentine Dupy, who lives in the hamlet of Belin-Beliet, described the area as “apocalyptic.” ‘There’s smoke everywhere… with aircraft dropping orange powder on the flames.’
Europe is experiencing a record-breaking summer of heat and drought, which has scorched the continent and rendered forests tinder-dry. A glacier route in Switzerland that has been covered by ice for the previous 2,000 years is expected to be ice-free by the end of the week because it has all thawed.
Firefighters claimed they were able to preserve her community, which had become a ghost town after police had ordered inhabitants to escape as the flames neared. However, the fire spread to the suburbs, destroying homes and charring tractors.
‘We’ve been fortunate. Our homes were not destroyed. But you can see the devastation all around you. Some dwellings could not be salvaged,’ added Gaetan, pointing to residences that had burned to the ground.
361 firemen, as well as vehicles and waterbombing planes, were on their way from around Europe to assist the 1,100 French firefighters already on the ground.
‘We are currently in the phase of (attempting to) restrict the fire, direct it where we want it, where there is less vegetation, where our trucks can best position themselves… so we can finally fix it, control it, and extinguish it,’ said Matthieu Jomain, a Gironde firefighter spokesman.
According to statistics from the European Forest Fire Information System, more than 60,000 hectares (230 square miles) of land in France have been burned this year, which is six times the full-year average from 2006 to 2021.
Temperatures in the Gironde area of France are expected to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday and remain high until Saturday, according to French officials.
Firefighters warned of a ‘explosive cocktail’ of meteorological conditions, with wind and tinder-box conditions aiding in the spread of the fires.
In July, large flames ravaged the Gironde, destroying more than 20,000 hectares of woodland and displacing about 40,000 people.
Jean-Louis Dartiailh, mayor of Hostens, characterized the last several weeks as a tragedy. ‘The area has been completely deformed. ‘We’re devastated and fatigued,’ he said on Radio Classique. ‘(This fire is) the last straw.’ Europe is experiencing a catastrophic heat wave and drought, which has had terrible repercussions for farmers and ecosystems already threatened by climate change and pollution.
In France, which is experiencing its worst drought on record, fires blazed across pine trees overnight, lighting the sky with a brilliant orange glow in the Gironde area and adjacent Landes. Since Tuesday, more than 68 square kilometers (26 square miles) had burnt.
Volunteers have been collecting dead fish washed ashore in Poland and Germany along the Oder River, which runs from Czechia north into the Baltic Sea.
According to Piotr Nieznanski, conservation policy director at WWF Poland, a hazardous chemical was apparently discharged into the river by a company, and the low water levels caused by the drought have rendered circumstances considerably more harmful for the fish.
‘A sad occurrence is taking place along the Oder Waterway, an international river, and there is no clear information on what is going on,’ he added, urging government officials to investigate.
People living beside the river have been told not to swim or even touch the water.
The official water management agency in Poland said that the drought and high temperatures might cause even little pollution to trigger an ecological calamity, but it has not identified the source of the contamination.
The dry bed of the Conopljankso reservoir in northern Serbia is now covered with dead fish that were unable to withstand the drought.
The water level along Germany’s Rhine River was in danger of dropping so low that transporting products, notably crucial energy supplies like coal and gasoline, would become problematic.
The dry Po River in Italy, which is undergoing its worst drought in seven decades, has already cost billions of euros in damages to farmers who depend on Italy’s longest river to water their farms and rice terraces.
‘I am young and I do not remember anything like this, but even the elderly in my village or the other villages around here have never seen anything like this, never ever,’ said Antonio Cestari, a 35-year-old farmer in Ficarolo who expects to produce only half of his usual crops of corn, wheat, and soy due to the low water levels in his river-fed wells.
The Po flows 652 kilometers (405 miles) from Turin in the northwest to Venice. It has hundreds of tributary rivers, but northern Italy hasn’t seen rain in months, and snowfall this year is down by 70%. The drying up of the Po is also threatening drinking water in Italy’s densely populated and heavily industrialized areas.
Locals in Scilla captured video of water gushing through the streets and swallowing automobiles on the road.
One guy said on Twitter that the water was the reOver in Portugal, the Serra da Estrela national park was also destroyed by a wildfire. A total of 1,500 firemen, 476 trucks, and 12 aircraft were dispatched to combat the inferno, which was 250 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Lisbon and was difficult to approach due to impassable heights about 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) high and steep ravines. The fire has destroyed 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of forest.
In the United Kingdom, where temperatures reached a record 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in July, the meteorological service has issued a fresh ‘severe heat’ warning for Thursday through Sunday, with temperatures expected to reach 36 C. (96.8 F).
It has been one of the driest summers on record in southern Britain, with the Met Office warning of a ‘extreme danger’ of wildfires in the coming days.
The London Fire Brigade said that its control center handled with 340 grass, rubbish, and open-land fires during the first week of August, an increase of eightfold from the previous year. ‘The grass in London is tinderbox dry, and the smallest of sparks can start a blaze that could cause devastation,’ said Assistant Commissioner Jonathan Smith.
In Switzerland, a drought and high temperatures have threatened fish populations, and authorities have begun removing fish from dry creeks.
This week, authorities in Hausen, canton of Zurich, trapped hundreds of fish, many of them brown trout, in the almost dried-up Heischerbach, Juchbach, and Muehlebach streams by anesthetizing them with electric shocks and immediately placed them in an oxygen-enriched water tank, local media said. Later, the fish were relocated to streams with sufficient water.
Despite all of the damage caused by the terrible weather, Swiss officials see one grim benefit: they think there is a chance of locating some persons who have gone missing in the Alps in recent years because their remains are being freed as glaciers melt.
Melting glaciers in the Swiss canton of Valais have lately exposed remains of a crashed aircraft and at least two skeletons in different sites. The corpses have yet to be identified, according to the news website 20Minuten on Thursday.
Hundreds of trucks traveling to France were forced to turn around and remain in Spain due to wildfires that caused officials to block certain border crossings. According to TVE, trucks, many of whom were hauling perishable products, were seeking for other routes to cross the border since the parking lots near the Irun crossing were filled.
France is experiencing its fourth heat wave of the year, while the nation suffers from the country’s worst drought on record, according to the authorities. Temperatures were forecast to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday.