Wildfires raging across southern Europe have forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted officials to ban spectators from a stage of the Tour de France, amid warnings of “powder keg” conditions after a record-breaking early summer heatwave.
Hundreds of firefighters are tackling blazes that have burned through almost 20,000 hectares in Portugal, Spain, France and Greece. Strong winds are forecast to fan the flames and temperatures are expected to rise again this week. In the remote foothills of the French Pyrenees near the Spanish border, 700 firefighters were struggling to contain an out-of-control wildfire that has scorched 5,000 hectares and prompted the evacuation of more than 10,000 people.
The French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said conditions were deteriorating, with wildfires now blazing in five departments and twice as much land burned so far this season compared with last year. The EU said on Monday it was sending four waterbombing aircraft to France from Cyprus and Sweden. The eastern Pyrenees prefect ordered Tour de France spectators not to go near the route or finish area of Monday’s third stage, limiting it to riders and essential vehicles.
In central Portugal’s Vouzela area, more than 1,200 firefighters supported by nearly 400 vehicles and 15 aircraft were trying to extinguish a blaze that had burned across 13,000 hectares by Sunday. Portugal’s interior minister, Luís Neves, described conditions as a “powder keg”. On the Spanish side of the border, fire ravaged 2,200 hectares, and in Spain’s eastern Castellón province, more than 500 people were evacuated. Large fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, while in Greece, a forest fire tore through two factories in Thessaloniki.
