Global Pulse

分类： environment

  • Elderly far more at risk from rising heat than thought: study

    Elderly far more at risk from rising heat than thought: study

    As the Northern Hemisphere grapples with a record-breaking summer of deadly extreme heat, a new modeling study from United States researchers has delivered a stark warning: the public health risk that rising global temperatures pose to elderly communities has been drastically underestimated for decades.

    Published in the journal *Lancet Planetary Health* and led by a team from Stanford University, the research addresses a critical gap in earlier climate and heat-related health studies. For years, researchers have relied on wet-bulb temperature — a metric that combines air temperature and humidity to measure how much heat the human body can tolerate before experiencing fatal heat stress. But the foundational data for this metric was collected exclusively from trials on young, healthy adults, failing to account for the biological vulnerabilities that come with age.

    Older adults over the age of 60 naturally sweat less than younger people, often live with pre-existing chronic health conditions, and frequently have weakened cardiovascular systems that make it far harder to regulate body temperature during heatwaves. To correct for this gap, the Stanford-led team used updated data from recent wet-bulb experiments that specifically tested heat and humidity tolerance among adults over 60. The researchers then integrated global population aging trends to model heat exposure risks for three separate age groups by the end of the 21st century, under multiple different global warming scenarios.

    The study’s core conclusion upends previous projections: “Intolerable heat will be experienced at much larger scales and for longer durations, affecting far more people than previously estimated.”

    Breaking down the projected risks, the team found that if the world limits average global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the more ambitious target set by the Paris Climate Agreement — 22 percent of all people over 60 globally will be exposed to unsafe levels of heat for at least one month every year. For every additional 1°C of warming above this threshold, roughly an extra one billion older people will face at least one additional month of heat and humidity that exceeds their body’s ability to cope.

    In a worst-case scenario where global average temperatures rise by 3°C by 2100, elderly populations in the hardest-hit regions — including South Asia and the Arabian Gulf — could face round-the-clock dangerous heat for three consecutive months each year. The nations at greatest overall risk are those with high poverty rates and limited access to affordable cooling technology: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Niger top the list of most vulnerable countries.

    Beyond the immediate public health death toll, the study warns that widespread unmanageable heat could trigger a new wave of global displacement. “These results suggest that uncompensable heat could increasingly drive internal displacement and transboundary climate migration, raising new policy and humanitarian challenges,” the authors noted.

    To avoid these grim outcomes, the research team issued two key calls to action. First, nations must accelerate deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions to slow the pace of global warming. Second, local and national heat action plans must explicitly prioritize vulnerable older populations, particularly since the majority of heat-related deaths occur indoors. Expanding access to affordable air conditioning and other cooling solutions for low-income and elderly households is a critical public health intervention, the team emphasized.

    The findings come as the world already sees the deadly impacts of extreme heat: this summer, a record-breaking heatwave across the Northern Hemisphere has already contributed to tens of thousands of deaths, with Europe — the world’s fastest-warming continent — facing devastating concurrent wildfires, drought, and sustained high temperatures that are on track to make this the hottest summer the continent has ever recorded. Climate scientists project that 2025 will be even hotter than 2024, as rising greenhouse gas concentrations continue to push global average temperatures higher.

  • French PM heckled over wildfire response as blazes continue across Europe

    French PM heckled over wildfire response as blazes continue across Europe

    A devastating wave of wildfires continued to rage across multiple European nations this week, leaving a trail of fatalities, mass evacuations, and widespread destruction, while triggering public fury over official response efforts in France’s hardest-hit regions. The crisis comes on the heels of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirming that Western Europe just endured its hottest combined June-July period ever recorded, amplifying concerns about climate change’s growing role in intensifying extreme weather events.

    In southwestern France, where hundreds of homes have been reduced to ash by weeks of unrelenting blazes, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu faced public heckling and boos from angry local residents during a scheduled visit to Le Porge, a Gironde community where 183 residential properties were destroyed by fire. Around 200 affected locals gathered outside the town hall to protest what they say is a lack of transparency and inadequate response from national authorities. Ludivine Daurignac, organizer of the local resident advocacy group, said that locals have been blocked from meeting with the prime minister to voice their concerns, with riot police lines barring access to the venue. She added that residents intend to file formal legal complaints to demand full transparency, accountability, and justice for the losses they have suffered.

    Many locals have also raised sharp questions about the strategic deployment of firefighting resources during the peak of the crisis. Last month, tens of thousands of tourists and residents were evacuated from the popular Cap Ferret peninsula as fires spread across Gironde. One local resident told French broadcaster BFM that many full-time professional firefighters were pulled from communities like Le Porge to defend the Cap Ferret area, leaving only volunteer crews to battle blazes in residential zones.

    Following the confrontation, Lecornu traveled to a separate scheduled meeting in Merignac, where he announced a new €12 million emergency aid package to support recovery efforts in the fire-ravaged Gironde and Landes regions. Under the plan, €10 million will go to Gironde and €2 million will be allocated to Landes, with the funding intended to let local governments immediately launch recovery projects and implement a formal long-term reconstruction plan. The prime minister also pledged that building permits for the full reconstruction of fire-destroyed homes will be approved within one month, and potentially even faster for eligible applicants. A spokesperson for Lecornu pushed back against resident criticism, stating that the government has “nothing to hide” regarding its management of fire suppression operations.

    France is far from the only nation grappling with unprecedented wildfire activity this season. In Belgium, firefighters have spent four consecutive days battling a massive blaze in the Hautes Fagnes, the country’s largest nature reserve, which officials have described as the largest wildfire in Belgium’s modern history. The blaze more than doubled in size over 24 hours over the weekend, but Belgian authorities reported Monday that more favorable wind patterns and overnight rainfall have slowed its spread. To support local ground crews, the European Union has coordinated cross-border assistance, with police helicopters and air support resources deployed from the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and Sweden.

    Greece has also faced a surge in new blazes, with the country’s fire service confirming 41 new forest fires broke out across the nation in the 24-hour period ending Monday. On the island of Salamina, located just off the coast of Athens, two major fires broke out almost simultaneously Sunday afternoon, killing two people and forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate. Approximately 200 firefighters were deployed to stop the two blazes from merging, as the island had been classified as facing extreme wildfire risk over the weekend. Greek authorities have urged all residents to remain vigilant and strictly follow official emergency instructions if new fires break out.

    In northeastern Spain, a soldier fighting the Peñas de Riglos wildfire in the Aragón region died over the weekend, marking another fatality linked to this season’s blazes, which have already burned nearly 16,000 hectares of land across the region. The European Commission announced Monday that 104 French firefighters accompanied by 36 fire vehicles have been deployed to assist Spanish crews in containing the blaze, which continues to burn near the Spanish-Portuguese border.

    Croatia is reeling from one of the most destructive coastal wildfires in its modern history, which tore through the Zadar region coastline overnight Friday, killing at least one person and injuring dozens. Around 1,200 residents and tourists were evacuated from affected areas as the blaze spread rapidly. On Monday, Croatian police announced they had arrested four people on suspicion of intentionally starting fires across 10 separate locations in the Zadar area. As the wildfire crisis continues to unfold across the continent, the EU has mobilized its shared emergency response resources to support affected member states, highlighting the cross-border nature of the climate-fueled disaster.

  • Belgian wildfire approaches Germany despite rain as Greece probes deadly blaze

    Belgian wildfire approaches Germany despite rain as Greece probes deadly blaze

    As Europe grapples with one of the hottest and driest summers documented in modern history, a crisis amplified by human-caused climate change according to recent research, multiple wildfire events across the continent have stretched emergency response capabilities and forced mass evacuations. In Belgium, one of the largest wildfires the country has ever seen continued to burn out of control on Monday, even as a welcome cold front brought overnight rain that softened conditions for hundreds of firefighters battling the blaze.

    The fire, located in the eastern High Fens nature region roughly 5 miles from the German border, shifted into a dense pine forest on Sunday before spreading east toward German territory. As of Monday, the blaze in Liège province had charred an estimated 12 square miles of land, leaving a landscape of blackened tree trunks and smoldering undergrowth. By early Monday, a thin fog mixed with the acrid scent of wood smoke hung over the burned area.

    Belgium’s King Philippe broke off his scheduled summer vacation to meet with the emergency teams deployed to the fire zone. Dozens of local firefighters have been reinforced by aerial support from Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, with local police operating drones to track fire movement in hard-to-reach areas. While the overnight rain helped slow the spread of the fire and reduce the risk of smoldering hotspots reigniting, it failed to fully extinguish the core of the blaze, regional public services spokesperson Nicolas Yernaux explained.

    Yernaux noted that containment crews have held the fire along their current operational lines, but a large section of the active burn remains in completely inaccessible terrain, advancing toward the German town of Monschau. “Where it is burning, I am not sure it [the rain] is really helping,” he added.

    Precautionary evacuation orders for hundreds of local residents remained in place on Monday, and local tourism businesses have already taken a heavy financial hit. Thomas van Sante, owner of the Mont Dragon hotel near the fire zone, confirmed that tourists have fled the area en masse and dozens of upcoming reservations have been canceled. Echoing Yernaux’s assessment, he noted, “There’s rain now but it is not enough.”

    To the south, Greece has been battling a wave of fire outbreaks across the country, just days after a fast-moving blaze on the island of Salamina, located just west of Athens, claimed two lives, injured nine others and destroyed multiple residential properties. On Monday, fire investigators continued processing the scene of the Salamina fire, while new blazes popped up across the country.

    One new fire broke out in Spata, a suburban area east of Athens that is home to Athens International Airport, the country’s main air travel hub. Dozens of firefighters, supported by two water-dropping aircraft and two helicopters, were rapidly deployed to the site and contained the blaze within 30 minutes, preventing any disruption to airport operations.

    In a separate development, Greek fire department officials announced the arrest of an 80-year-old man in the northern town of Kavala on deliberate arson charges, accusing him of intentionally setting fire to dry brush. The arrest is one of 302 fire-related detentions Greek authorities have made since the start of 2024: 31 of those arrests are for intentional arson, while 271 stem from negligent behavior that sparked accidental wildfires.

    Further west in southwestern France, emergency officials have announced progress in taming a blaze in the Landes region. After four days of nonstop fire suppression work, the fire is now fully under control. Around 600 local residents were evacuated last week as extreme heat pushed the blaze to burn roughly 6.6 square miles of land. With temperatures starting to drop on Monday, around half of the evacuated residents have been allowed to return to their homes.

    This report contains contributions from AP correspondents in Paris and Argostoli, Greece.

  • Rain brings respite as Belgium wrestles massive wildfire

    Rain brings respite as Belgium wrestles massive wildfire

    Four days into fighting the most extensive wildfire Belgium has seen in 100 years, emergency crews received a long-awaited boost on Monday when gentle rain fell across the fire zone in the Hautes Fagnes (High Fens) nature reserve, a protected peat bog and forest ecosystem along the country’s border with Germany.

    The massive blaze, which ignited on Friday of unknown origin, has already scorched roughly 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of protected land — an area roughly half the size of Manhattan. For the past week, a historic heatwave and record-dry conditions have turned much of Western Europe into a tinderbox, triggering a wave of destructive wildfires across France, Greece, Portugal and Spain that have already been linked to thousands of heat and fire-related deaths. This Belgian blaze has emerged as the most active and high-priority fire front on the continent this week.

    Around 500 Belgian firefighters and emergency personnel have been mobilized to contain the spread, supported by international resources: two water-bombing aircraft from Sweden, two Dutch military Chinook helicopters, and two additional Belgian aerial craft. Local farmers have also stepped in to assist, using their tractors to haul water tankers filled from nearby lakes to remote parts of the fire line that heavy emergency vehicles cannot reach. The boggy, uneven terrain of the High Fens has created major obstacles for ground crews: heavy trucks risk sinking into the soft peat, forcing firefighters to rely heavily on aerial support and making close-range fire suppression extremely difficult.

    By Sunday, the fire had crept close enough to the German border to prompt an evacuation order for the small German border town of Monschau, and two Belgian villages near the ignition point were also cleared as a thick plume of yellow smoke drifted across the region. Smoke from the blaze was detected as far away as eastern France, where local officials issued an air quality warning for affected communities. As of Monday morning, all evacuated residents remain under orders to stay away from their homes for safety.

    Crisis management spokesperson Tony Hosmans told reporters on Monday that the fire has stopped advancing toward the German border, a shift that comes alongside favorable wind conditions and the onset of light rain. Additional scattered showers are forecast for the region throughout the week, which officials say is helping slow the fire’s spread. “The wind is favourable and the current rainfall is helping to contain the spread,” Hosmans said. “At present, the fire is contained wherever intervention is possible.” Even so, Hosmans cautioned that the blaze is not yet fully under control, and an aerial reconnaissance mission scheduled for later Monday is expected to provide a full update on the fire’s footprint and remaining hotspots.

    Historically, the High Fens region was last hit by a massive wildfire of this scale in 1911, during a similar period of extreme heat and drought. This current blaze is the largest to hit the country since that event more than a century ago. Local residents and business owners, many of whom have mobilized to provide food, water and supplies to on-site crews, say the fire marks a wake-up call for a region that once assumed extreme wildfires were a problem for other parts of the world. “You always think it happens somewhere else. Well, not anymore. It’s happening to us,” Annick Dodemont, a 41-year-old restaurant owner in nearby Eupen who has been supporting firefighting efforts, told AFP.

    Belgium, like much of the European continent, has seen a recent surge in extreme summer temperatures, with highs reaching 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country last Friday. These high temperatures, paired with weeks of below-average rainfall, have created ideal conditions for wildfire ignition and rapid spread across the region.

  • Landslide in South Korea kills one as record rain lashes south

    Landslide in South Korea kills one as record rain lashes south

    A catastrophic wave of extreme rainfall has unleashed deadly destruction across South Korea’s southeastern Gyeongsang province, leaving one person dead and two injured after a landslide crashed into a residential building in the coastal city of Geoje. The disaster unfolded early Monday morning, when the mudslide fully engulfed the ground floor of a local apartment complex. Emergency response teams rushed to the site to extract three trapped residents, though medics later confirmed one victim had succumbed to injuries, according to local South Korean media reports.

    The deadly event came amid a historic downpour that shattered decades of weather records in Geoje. Official data from South Korea’s national meteorological agency shows the city recorded 124.5 millimeters of rainfall in just a single hour overnight between Sunday and Monday — the highest hourly precipitation total ever recorded in the city since systematic weather tracking began there in 1972. Cumulatively, Geoje received more than 400 millimeters of rain across the overnight period, overwhelming drainage systems and triggering widespread infrastructure failure.

    Witness videos shared across social media platforms paint a grim picture of the flooding: powerful, murky currents rush through downtown city streets, submerging passenger vehicles up to their windshields and sweeping loose debris across roadways. In response to the unfolding crisis, Geoje city authorities has implemented widespread service suspensions and safety measures: all popular tourist attractions in the city were closed to visitors on Monday, public bus routes have been taken offline due to flooded or damaged roads, and regular municipal household waste collection has been paused until conditions improve. As early as Sunday, local officials had already issued urgent public advisories urging residents to avoid non-essential travel, steer clear of high-risk areas including riverbanks and steep hillsides, and evacuate immediately to designated safe shelters if instructed by emergency personnel.

    This disaster in South Korea is part of a broader pattern of extreme weather sweeping across East and Southeast Asia this month, where successive storm systems have brought record flooding and landslides to populated areas of China, Japan, and the Philippines. Climate forecasters warn the 2024 typhoon season is on track to be far more intense than the historical average, a shift directly linked to a strong El Niño climate pattern that developed in June. El Niño drives elevated ocean and global atmospheric temperatures, which in turn boost the moisture content and destructive power of tropical typhoons and storm systems moving through the region.

    Just days before the Geoje landslide, Japan faced its own extreme weather catastrophe when “unprecedented” rainfall battered Chiba Prefecture, located just outside of Tokyo. That deluge claimed 10 lives and left thousands of air travelers stranded at Narita International Airport when floodwaters disrupted airport operations. More than 20,000 households across the prefecture lost power during the storm, and the 10th confirmed fatality was identified Sunday as a man in his 30s who died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running a portable generator inside his home to cope with the extended power outage, Japan’s national public broadcaster NHK reported.

  • Two dead and evacuation under way as fires break out on Greek island

    Two dead and evacuation under way as fires break out on Greek island

    On a Sunday marked by extreme wildfire risk, two separate blazes ignited just minutes apart on Salamina, a populated Greek island located a short distance west of Athens, leaving two people dead and triggering a large-scale emergency evacuation operation. The first fire was recorded at 14:40 local time, 12:40 GMT, and both blazes spread at an alarming speed, driven by gusty high winds that have created dangerous fire conditions across Southern Europe this weekend. Roughly 200 firefighters have been deployed to Salamina to battle the flames, backed by a fleet of air support assets, 50 fire engines, multiple coast guard patrol boats, and dozens of private watercraft that have been mobilized to assist with evacuation efforts. As of the latest updates, around 90 residents have already been evacuated from high-risk areas by sea, with more evacuation operations ongoing. Thodoris Zannis, Deputy Mayor of Salamina, noted that firefighters are working against the clock to stop the two blazes from spreading across the island’s central mountain range and merging into a single massive, uncontrollable wildfire. Salamina is home to approximately 37,000 permanent residents, a large share of whom are elderly people with limited ability to evacuate independently. This incident comes as fire crews across the entire European continent grapple with a surge in wildfire activity this weekend, fueled by a sustained period of extreme high heat that has parched vegetation and turned large swathes of Southern Europe into tinderboxes. The dual simultaneous blazes near one of Europe’s major capital cities have underscored the growing risk of extreme wildfire events linked to rising global temperatures.

  • Europe wildfires: latest developments

    Europe wildfires: latest developments

    Across the European continent, a spreading wave of destructive wildfires amplified by extreme heat and parched vegetation left two people dead on a Greek island over the weekend, while firefighters in Belgium raced to contain the largest blaze the nation has seen in modern history. The 2024 summer of historic high temperatures has already been linked to thousands of heat-related deaths across the region, and created the perfect dry conditions that have sent wildfire risk soaring to unprecedented levels. Here’s a breakdown of the latest updates on the cross-continental crisis.

    On the Greek island of Salamis, a popular tourist destination just off the coast of Athens, two separate fire ignitions left two people dead this Sunday, prompting emergency officials to order the evacuation of hundreds of beachgoers and permanent local residents. “There are hundreds of bathers and permanent residents in the affected area, an evacuation order has been issued,” Yiannis Artopios, deputy spokesperson for Greece’s national fire service, confirmed to state public broadcaster ERT.

    In eastern Belgium, military helicopter crews and ground teams operating agricultural tractors worked around the clock to deliver massive volumes of water to firefighters battling an out-of-control wildfire raging across an isolated, hard-to-access nature reserve. While no fatalities have been reported in the Belgian blaze, the size of the fire has exploded dramatically since Friday, when it had burned just 80 hectares of land. By Sunday, the scorched area had expanded to nearly 3,000 hectares, and the origin of the ignition remains under official investigation.

    Croatian law enforcement announced Sunday that they had taken four people into custody on suspicion of deliberately starting multiple wildfires that have burned across swathes of the country’s Adriatic coastline in recent days. The four suspects are accused of setting blazes that have destroyed large areas of native pine forest and commercial olive groves, as the country fights a growing outbreak of fires driven by prolonged drought and record-breaking heat.

    In southwestern France, firefighters have successfully stabilized a major wildfire that burned 1,700 hectares of land in the Landes region after three days of coordinated ground and aerial firefighting operations. Local government official Gilles Clavreul reported that the situation is progressing “favourably”, thanks to a recent drop in air temperatures and rising humidity. When the fire first broke out Thursday, local temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius; Sunday afternoon temperatures were forecast to reach just 28 degrees. While roughly 650 evacuated residents have been able to leave temporary emergency accommodation, they have not yet been cleared to return to their properties.

  • Air support kicks in as record Belgian wildfire jumps in size

    Air support kicks in as record Belgian wildfire jumps in size

    One of the most devastating wildfires in modern Belgian history is pushing emergency responders to their limits, after a fast-moving blaze tore through the ecologically sensitive High Fens nature reserve near the German border, growing exponentially in size just 48 hours after igniting. With terrain making ground operations extremely dangerous and difficult, cross-border and European aerial support has been deployed to reinforce hundreds of firefighters working to contain the inferno.

    The blaze, which broke out on Friday in an area of fragile peatlands and pine forests popular with outdoor hikers, has already scorched roughly 3,000 hectares of protected land — up from just 80 hectares on the day of ignition, and 850 hectares by Saturday morning. It marks the largest wildfire to hit Belgium since a catastrophic blaze tore through the exact same region in 1911, during a historic period of heat and drought that mirrors current conditions across Western Europe.

    As of Sunday, Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin confirmed that while overall fire conditions remain highly challenging, two of the most active fire fronts advancing toward the settlements of Jalhay and Monschau have been successfully brought under control. More than 250 firefighters and emergency personnel from Belgium and neighboring Germany have been deployed to the scene, supported by specialized modern fire engines. On the ground, an AFP correspondent observed convoys of tractors pulling water tankers to supply crews, while helicopters conducted repeated water drops drawn from a nearby lake.

    Difficult terrain has been one of the biggest barriers to containment. The High Fens region is a mosaic of heathland, waterlogged peat bogs, and narrow elevated boardwalks, where heavy emergency vehicles risk sinking into soft ground, preventing crews from getting close enough to tackle the deepest parts of the blaze. This has forced authorities to rely heavily on aerial support to slow the fire’s spread.

    By Sunday, international assistance had arrived to boost firefighting efforts: two heavy water-bombing aircraft from Sweden joined four already deployed helicopters — two operated by Belgian forces and two by the Dutch military. A dedicated liaison officer has been assigned to coordinate all aerial operations to reduce the risk of mid-air or ground accidents. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever publicly thanked European Union partners for the rapid support in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

    The rapid spread of the fire has been fueled by a recent spell of record-breaking heat and severe drought across much of Western Europe, which pushed temperatures in parts of Belgium as high as 37 degrees Celsius on Friday — creating tinder-dry conditions ideal for wildfire ignition and spread.

    Two nearby villages have been partially evacuated as a thick plume of yellowish smoke blanketed the entire fire zone. Around 20 displaced residents spent Saturday night in a local sports hall, per officials from Liege province, while many other evacuees arranged alternative shelter with friends or family. A small number of residents even defied evacuation orders to remain in their homes. Smoke has drifted as far as the neighboring province of Namur, where local authorities were forced to urge residents to stop overloading emergency phone lines with reports of smoke odors.

    Shifting wind patterns have further complicated containment efforts, but provincial officials confirmed Sunday that the defensive fire line protecting evacuated residential areas remains intact. As of the latest update, no homes have been damaged or destroyed by the fire, though the blaze remains uncomfortably close to residential areas, and smoke concentrations remain at hazardous levels across a wide area. The exact cause of the ignition remains unknown, as responders have not yet been able to safely access the point where the fire first started.

  • Firefighters battle a massive Belgian wildfire, forcing hundreds to evacuate

    Firefighters battle a massive Belgian wildfire, forcing hundreds to evacuate

    A catastrophic wildfire tearing through Belgium’s iconic High Fens nature reserve has become the largest blaze the country has seen in modern history, forcing mass evacuations and prompting an international cross-border rescue effort amid an ongoing regional heat and drought crisis.

    The inferno, which was first detected as it expanded rapidly in eastern Belgium near the German border, had already scorched more than 27 square kilometers of protected heathland and peat bog by Sunday — double the size of the previous record-breaking 2011 fire that burned through the same protected ecosystem. The challenging landscape of the High Fens, with its mixture of dry, flammable heath and deep peat deposits, has severely hampered containment efforts for emergency crews.

    When shifting winds pushed thick toxic smoke toward populated areas on Saturday, local officials ordered 600 residents across two nearby municipalities in Liège Province — Waimes and Bütgenbach — to evacuate immediately. Tourists visiting the popular natural reserve were also told to leave the high-risk zone, and a local gymnasium was set up as a temporary emergency shelter for displaced people. As of Sunday morning, authorities confirmed no residential structures had been damaged by the fire, but the blaze remains dangerously close to populated neighborhoods, and heavy smoke continues to blanket the region. Officials have issued a strict order for non-emergency personnel to avoid the fire zone, noting that excess civilian traffic could block access for response vehicles and slow ongoing firefighting operations.

    To scale up response efforts, Belgium activated the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism to request support from other member states. “The High Fens are burning. Belgium is not facing it alone,” Hadja Lahbib, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, announced on the social platform X. In response to the call, Sweden dispatched two specialized water-bombing aircraft, while the Netherlands and the Czech Republic each contributed additional firefighting helicopters to join the two helicopters already operated by Belgian federal police. In total, more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed to the fire line, including firefighters from both Belgium and neighboring Germany, police officers, military personnel and civil protection workers.

    The wildfire follows weeks of record-breaking high temperatures and minimal rainfall across Western Europe. Belgium recorded another round of extreme heat earlier this week, with temperatures hitting 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit) across parts of the country on Friday. The dry conditions have turned vegetation across the region into tinder, increasing wildfire risk dramatically.

    The cross-border impact of the blaze has already prompted emergency precautions in Germany. Local authorities in the German border town of Monschau warned overnight Saturday that the fire front was just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the German border, and placed local firefighting units on high alert. Early Sunday, officials ordered temporary evacuation for three outlying districts near the border, citing unavoidable health risks from drifting wildfire smoke.

    The Belgian blaze is part of a wider pattern of extreme wildfire activity across Western Europe this summer. In southwestern France, firefighters have spent days battling a separate wildfire that has burned 17 square kilometers of pine forest in the Landes region. Local prefect Gilles Clavreul reported Sunday that the fire had not seen any major new flare-ups overnight, noting that “the situation is developing rather favorably.” Around 650 residents have already been evacuated from the Landes area, and this blaze marks the third major wildfire to hit the region’s vast pine forests this summer, following two large outbreaks in late July. Just last month, a massive wildfire in the neighboring Gironde department burned more than 420 square kilometers of land, forced 220,000 people to evacuate, and spread toward the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux.

  • Hawaii braces for potential first direct hit by a hurricane in 34 years

    Hawaii braces for potential first direct hit by a hurricane in 34 years

    Three decades after the last devastating hurricane struck the Hawaiian archipelago, the entire state is on high alert as Category 1 Hurricane Lala churns toward its shores, poised to deliver the first direct hurricane landfall the region has seen since 1992.

    After intensifying from a tropical system to reach hurricane strength on Saturday, Lala currently carries sustained maximum winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kilometers per hour), according to official meteorological assessments. Forecasters warn that the storm could bring catastrophic impacts to the state’s largest island, the Big Island, if its worst-case trajectory plays out: extreme rainfall totaling up to 25 inches (63 centimeters) and a dangerous 3-foot storm surge that threatens coastal communities.

    The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a full hurricane warning for the entire Big Island, while neighboring Maui County, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau remain under active tropical storm warnings as the system progresses. State and local officials have emphasized that Lala brings potential life-threatening hazards, including fast-moving flash floods and destructive mudslides across sloped and low-lying areas. The storm is projected to either make landfall along the southern tip of the Big Island on Saturday or pass within just a few miles of the coast, before continuing its westward track across the Pacific. Notably, historical records cited by the Associated Press show that no hurricane has made direct landfall on the Big Island in the 155 years since modern record-keeping began.

    As the weekend progresses, forecasters expect Lala to gradually weaken back to tropical storm strength after passing the Big Island, with its center tracking just south of Hawaii’s other major populated islands. Still, state officials are urging caution across all islands.

    Hawaii Governor Josh Green issued an urgent alert to residents via the social platform X, warning that the archipelago should prepare for “an incredible amount of water” over the coming days. “Damaging winds, heavy rain, flash flooding and dangerous surf are possible across the state through the weekend,” Green’s statement read.

    The approaching storm has already severely disrupted travel to and from the islands. Flight tracking data from flightaware.com shows widespread flight cancellations across Big Island’s two primary airports: 40 percent of all scheduled flights have been grounded at Ellison Onizuka Kona International, the island’s largest air hub, while 80 percent of flights have been called off at Hilo International.

    For the southeastern region of the Big Island, the NWS has issued its most severe rainfall and flooding forecast. “Major rainfall flooding may prompt many evacuations and rescues,” the agency said, noting that rivers and small tributaries across the area “may rapidly overflow their banks in multiple places.”

    Officials have repeatedly urged residents to complete their emergency preparations well ahead of the storm’s arrival. Social media posts from local Facebook community boards show residents scrambling to stock up on supplies, fill sandbags to reinforce their homes against flooding, and confirm whether local grocery and hardware stores remained open in the early hours of Saturday.

    Hawaii County’s Civil Defense Agency confirmed that public emergency shelters are available in every district across the Big Island, and urged residents to finalize their safety plans immediately. “At this time, you should have completed your storm-ready preparations and focusing on your Sheltering Plan,” the agency announced via X.

    The last hurricane to directly strike Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki, a powerful Category 4 storm that made landfall on Kauai’s southern coast in 1992. Iniki left a devastating legacy: six fatalities and an estimated $3 billion in total damage across the state, a memory that has underscored state officials’ urgency as Lala approaches.