More than 10,000 people were evacuated overnight in southwestern France as a rapidly spreading wildfire scorched through 2,000 hectares of land west of the city of Bordeaux, officials said on Thursday.
Wildfires have burnt more land in Europe already this year than the annual average in the past two decades, data shows, as the world’s fastest-warming continent has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves so far this year.
Five hundred firefighters are battling to control the blaze, the prefecture said, adding that the wildfire was very rough, but that no one has been injured so far.
The wildfire is located near the Arcachon Bay area, a tourist hotspot, and many of those evacuated are tourists staying in camping sites.
Firefighters extinguishing fires from a wildland water truck in Le Porge, southwestern France on Thursday. Photograph: Romain Perrocheau/AFP via Getty Images 
A wildfire rages through a forestry area in Le Porge, southwestern France early. Photograph: Romain Perrocheau/AFP via Getty Images
Firefighters battling wildfires in Spain and France said the risk of more blazes over the coming days was very high, even as a major fire raging in Spain’s central Guadalajara province receded, allowing some residents to return home.
In France, where two firefighters died on Tuesday as their truck was engulfed in flames in the southwest region of Gironde, authorities urged people to avoid using barbecues in areas hit by heatwaves, stressing that nine out of 10 wildfires start, accidentally or not, as a result of human activity.
In the western Balkans, the danger has shifted from heatwaves to hailstorms, with several people injured in North Macedonia and eastern Kosovo.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms. The Reuters Climate Monitor, an interactive tool providing real-time data, showed the average high temperature across western Europe is forecast to be 26.6 degrees, which is 3 degrees above the normal high for July 22nd in the period from 1961 to 1990.
Spain’s worst wildfire this year has burned an estimated 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) in the Guadalajara region. It started to stabilise on Tuesday after forcing evacuations in 34 municipalities and confinement orders in 14 others.
Castilla-La Mancha’s fire service said residents of five villages had been authorised to return, although other restrictions remained in place.
Visiting the region on Wednesday, prime minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain had already suffered 22 major wildfires this year.
“We have already reached 100,000 hectares before reaching the most critical period of the year in the fight against wildfires,” he said. “To put that into perspective, that is the annual average that Spain experienced over the past decade,” he said, adding that more must be done to prevent fires.
Spain’s weather agency said the danger of wildfires remained “very high or extreme” across most of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands and was expected to increase further in the coming days.
It urged people to “exercise extreme caution” as the ongoing heatwave combined with dry thunderstorms and Saharan dust.
While temperatures will ease slightly in some areas on Thursday, a dry westerly wind is forecast to drive a fresh surge of heat in Mediterranean regions, where highs of 42 to 44 degrees could be recorded in some areas.
A marked cool-down is expected from Friday. However, the respite may be brief. Temperatures are forecast to rise again from Sunday, and intense heat could return across much of Spain early next week.
So far this year, 44,000 hectares have burned in France, much more than the average, interior minister Laurent Nunez said in Gironde, where he travelled on Wednesday, to pay tribute to the two firefighters who died on Tuesday fighting another fire in the area.
Officials said another fire was raging in the Hautes-Alpes, also in southeastern France.
In Greece, with temperatures forecast to top 41 degrees, authorities have banned outdoor work at peak midday sun. In Cyprus, which is also used to high summer temperatures, working outdoors was banned during afternoon hours on Wednesday.
In Skopje, capital of North Macedonia, 11 people were admitted to hospital, three of them with serious injuries, after a storm on Tuesday night felled trees, damaged roofs and caused power outages across the Balkan country, local media reported.
Roads were blocked and some towns left without electricity and water.
In Kosovo, the Hydrometeorological Institute said more storms were expected on Wednesday and warned of possible lightning strikes, damage to the electricity network, power outages, flooding and property damage.
Local media showed roofs being blown away, torrential rain and residents covering their cars with blankets on Tuesday to protect them from hail. – Reuters