London is facing a “major incident” caused by to multiple blazes, as wildfires continue to rage and claim lives across large parts of Europe.
On Tuesday, around 250 firefighters were deployed to tackle several park and grassland fires in east and south London, while a major blaze in the village of Wennington near the UK capital burnt homes and fields.
“London Fire Brigade has just declared a Major Incident in response to a huge surge in fires across the capital today,” Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Twitter.
“This is critical, the London Fire Brigade is under immense pressure,” he added.
The UK recorded its highest ever temperature in recent history on Tuesday — 40.2°C at London Heathrow airport.
175 firefighters grappled against a blaze on Pea Lane in Upminster, east London, with smoke pouring across the M25 motorway, and a further 85 tackled two fires in Croydon woodlands.
Fires were also reported in the UK counties of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
Many of the fires that broke out were still burning in the evening, with firefighters remaining at the scene.
Meanwhile, thousands of people have been evacuated in France and Spain as water-bombing planes scramble to extinguish flames in tinder-dry forests.
Two people were killed in the blazes in Spain that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has blamed on global warming.
The body of a 69-year-old sheep farmer was found on Monday in the northwestern Zamora province near where a 62-year-old firefighter died a day earlier when he was trapped by flames.
More than 30 forest fires around Spain have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and blackened 220 square kilometres of land.
“Climate change kills,” Sánchez said Monday during a visit to the Extremadura region. “It kills people, it kills our ecosystems and biodiversity.”
At least 748 heat-related deaths have been reported in the heat wave in Spain and neighbouring Portugal, where temperatures reached 47 C earlier this month.
Much cooler weather on Monday helped around 600 Portuguese firefighters tackle four major fires in the north of the country.
Authorities also discovered the bodies of an elderly couple inside a burned-out vehicle near Murça. On Friday, a Portuguese pilot died when his aircraft crashed as it battled a wildfire in the northern municipality of Torre de Moncorvo.
In total, more than 37,000 people have also been forced from their homes and summer vacation spots in the southern Gironde region in France since the wildfires began on July 12.
Authorities evacuated more towns, moving another 14,900 people from areas that could find themselves in the path of the fires and choking smoke.
One man has been detained on suspicion of deliberately starting a fire near Bordeaux, French prosecutors said in a statement.
Greece’s Civil Protection Authority has also warned of a very high risk of fires across the country on Tuesday. Six villages north of the capital, Athens, were evacuated due to a major fire.
Climate scientists say climate change will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive unless governments take decisive action to stop it.
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