35 minutes agoFire includes forest in southern Paris, as the deadly heat wave spreads across Europe
Periskopi(an hour ago)
(an hour ago)French firefighters are fighting a major fire in a forest in southern Paris, while a devastating heat wave continues to spread throughout Europe, CNN reports.
More than 800 hectares of the Fontainebleau Forest have been burned, CNN's partner, BFMTV, reported on Monday, while fireplanes have drawn water from the Sena River under efforts to put fire under control.
France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told reporters that police are investigating whether the fire is deliberately caused. Forest fires have erupted in other parts of the country, Nunez said in an X post Sunday.
Forest fires are not unusual in Europe, but the climate crisis is bringing warmer and dryer weather, creating conditions for tougher fire seasons. They are also happening earlier in the year and with increasing intensity.
In most of France and Spain, an extremely wet winter left many vegetation that quickly became lightly flammable, while three successive heat waves took temperatures to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit [30 ° C].
This has led to an increase in the number of major fires, according to data from the European Forest Fires Information System (EFFIS).
Extreme heat is also causing death increases. In France more than 2,000 deaths were attributed to the heat during the last week of June. France registered the hottest day of its history on June 24th.
The death toll increased by 29% in the last week of June compared to the previous week, according to French Health Minister Stephanie Rist, who noted a clear “increase of deaths in persons over the age of 45.
And this trend is likely to continue in the coming years, as Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, with temperatures rising more than twice faster than the global average, according to the European Union's Climate Change Service Copernicus.
