Reuters. Emergency services battled wildfires across swathes of southern Europe amid mass evacuations on Wednesday (July 20), as warnings sounded in London after Britain's hottest day that the fight against climate change needed to be stepped up.
Wildfires destroyed homes in Wennington, England.
"We've lost everything but we've got all still got our lives - I think everybody got out safely, " said Alfie Stock, local resident.
Hundreds fled in central Italy as gas tanks exploded in a forest fire near the Tuscan town of Lucca, while similar numbers fled in Greece as a blaze fuelled by gale-force winds raged in mountains north of Athens.
A brutal heatwave with spikes well above 40 Celsius (104F) settled over southern Europe last week, part of a global pattern of rising temperatures, widely attributed by scientists and climatologists to human activity.
While the record heat last week around parts of the Mediterranean has eased, mercury readings have begun heading up again in Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Portugal's northern region's Civil Protection commander Armando Silva said rising temperatures and strong winds would make it harder to fight the country's largest wildfire centred on the municipality of Murça.
It has burned 10,000-12,000 hectares (38-46 square miles) since Sunday and around 800 firefighters and six water planes have been deployed to tackle it.
In Spain, where emergency crews were tackling fires in five regions, national weather service AEMET also forecast higher temperatures.
Wildfires burned in several areas of Italy, including one that threatened to leave part of the northeastern city of Trieste without power and water, and 14 metropolitan areas including Rome, Milan and Florence were due to be put on the country's highest heat-wave alert on Thursday.
