Global Pulse

分类： environment

  • Firefighters battle wildfire tearing through Belgian nature reserve

    Firefighters battle wildfire tearing through Belgian nature reserve

    A devastating out-of-control wildfire sweeping across Belgium’s iconic High Fens, the nation’s largest nature reserve, has been labeled the worst blaze the country has faced in modern history, prompting a cross-border emergency response as extreme heat continues to fuel widespread fire risk across the European continent.

    The inferno first ignited on Friday within the protected nature park, which sits along Belgium’s eastern border with Germany. By Saturday, flames had already consumed roughly one-third of the reserve’s vast landscape of bogland, moorland, and old-growth forest, forcing mandatory evacuation orders for residents of two nearby villages. Local emergency officials issued urgent warnings that advancing flames were on a trajectory that could put residential neighborhoods at risk.

    Challenged by the reserve’s uneven, hard-to-reach terrain and shifting wind patterns, Belgian firefighters have been forced to make tactical concessions to contain the spread, allowing some sections of heathland to burn in order to redirect resources to higher-priority protection zones. As of Saturday afternoon, regional authorities confirmed the blaze still remained unchecked. “There is a risk that the fire could reach homes, but we are deploying all available resources to protect them,” explained Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for Wallonia’s regional government. A nearby local gymnasium has been converted into a temporary emergency shelter to house the evacuated residents.

    Gregory Melotte, a firefighter on the front lines of the suppression effort, told Belgian public broadcaster RTBF that crews had made limited progress holding back the blaze. “We managed to calm the fire coming from the plain, to prevent it from spreading into the fir forest. We still succeeded in our mission, but it’s not over yet. The flames are coming towards us, the wind has shifted twice, once in our favour, once against us,” he said.

    To boost their response capacity, Belgian authorities activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism, calling for additional support from neighboring and allied member states. European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib confirmed that cross-border reinforcements were already en route by Saturday: two water-bombing aircraft from Sweden, plus one helicopter deployed by the Czech Republic and a second from the Netherlands.

    The High Fens fire is far from an isolated incident. Across Europe, multiple major wildfires were burning simultaneously over the weekend, amplified by a summer of record-breaking heat that has left vegetation parched and landscapes extremely fire-prone. In southwestern France’s Landes region, a wildfire that first ignited on Thursday reignited unexpectedly on Saturday, forcing 650 local residents to flee their homes. More than 500 French firefighters have been deployed to bring that blaze under control.

    Since Friday, new major fire outbreaks have also been recorded in Croatia, Spain, and Serbia, adding to a growing list of fire events across the continent that have already destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and natural land. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has officially confirmed that Western Europe just experienced the hottest June-to-July period ever recorded since systematic monitoring began, creating the ideal dry, hot conditions for large-scale wildfire ignition and spread.

  • Dozens injured and thousands evacuated in Croatia wildfire

    Dozens injured and thousands evacuated in Croatia wildfire

    A catastrophic wildfire that ranks among the most destructive in Croatia’s modern history has carved a deadly path across the country’s Adriatic coastline, leaving at least one person dead and nearly 40 others injured, 10 of them in intensive care, after raging through coastal communities from Thursday night into Friday morning. The inferno ignited late Thursday near the small village of Lokva Rogoznica, and rapidly advanced toward the popular coastal tourist hub of Omis, located just six kilometers away. Fanned by gale-force winds that pushed flames across dry pine-covered hillsides, the blaze spread at an unprecedented rate, consuming 1,000 hectares of land in just four hours, destroying everything in its path, including dozens of homes and parked vehicles.

    Approximately 1,200 people, both local residents and visiting tourists, were forced to flee the advancing fire, with emergency responders opening temporary shelters in multiple nearby coastal towns to house those displaced. Dramatic footage shared across social media captured apocalyptic scenes: thick black smoke choking the sky and turning it bright red, massive flames devouring vegetation, and panicked onlookers trapped as the fire cut off escape routes. Some desperate evacuees were forced to jump from their boats into the Adriatic Sea to escape the intense heat and advancing flames.

    Over 300 firefighters were deployed to contain the blaze overnight, but rapid spread and extreme conditions forced crews to repeatedly retreat to avoid being trapped. Viseslav Pesic, commander of the Omis Volunteer Fire Department, told news outlet Reuters that the intensity of the fire led many fleeing residents to abandon their vehicles directly in active fire zones, blocking access routes and slowing emergency response efforts. On Friday morning, search teams conducting sweep operations of burned-out areas discovered the body of the fire’s first fatality, and search operations continued in affected zones as of Friday afternoon.

    During an official visit to the impacted region on Friday, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic commended the relentless work of emergency crews, noting that the fire spread at “lightning speed” driven by powerful winds. “What the firefighters have managed to save here is truly a miracle,” Plenkovic told reporters on site. Croatia’s national fire chief Slavko Tucakovic echoed that assessment, labeling the event “one of the worst” wildfires in the nation’s recorded history.

    This devastating blaze is far from an isolated event: much of Southern Europe is currently grappling with a wave of extreme wildfire activity, driven by a record-breaking summer of prolonged heatwaves and persistent dry conditions that have left vegetation tinder-dry across the continent. In Greece, more than 200 people were evacuated by sea from a beach resort in Agios Vasileios as wildfires spread across the country. In southwestern France’s Landes region, over 500 residents were displaced by a new blaze near an area already left devastated by earlier wildfires this summer. In western Germany, 2,000 residents of the village of Gey were ordered to evacuate when a forest fire advanced toward the settlement near the Belgian border. In the United Kingdom, authorities issued an emergency “very high risk” wildfire alert to millions of people across England and Wales on Friday, as firefighters battle multiple active blazes in the West Midlands.

  • Four more belugas arrive at Chicago aquarium from shuttered Canadian theme park

    Four more belugas arrive at Chicago aquarium from shuttered Canadian theme park

    CHICAGO – A landmark cross-border animal rescue effort reached a new milestone this week as four more beluga whales completed their journey from a shuttered Canadian theme park to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, bringing the total number of relocated belugas at the facility to eight. This transfer marks the second group of whales moved from Ontario’s Marineland, an amusement park near Niagara Falls that permanently closed to the public in late 2024, following an initial batch of four belugas that arrived at Shedd last July.

    The relocation is part of a broader, internationally coordinated rescue plan approved by the Canadian government that will eventually move all 30 whales and four dolphins remaining at Marineland to accredited aquariums and marine parks across the United States and Spain. Without the approval of this rescue effort, animal welfare experts warn the entire captive population would have faced mass euthanasia.

    Marineland, which first announced it was up for sale in early 2023, has long faced scrutiny over the health and welfare of its marine mammal population. Data obtained through Canadian freedom-of-information laws and official public statements confirms that 20 marine mammals – 19 belugas and one killer whale – have died at the facility since 2019, raising urgent calls for a swift intervention to save the remaining animals.

    The international transfer operation is unprecedented in scale and complexity, requiring months of meticulous advance planning to ensure the whales’ safety during travel. Each beluga is transported in custom-built supportive slings housed inside temperature-controlled shipping containers, designed to reduce stress and physical strain during the cross-border journey. Months before the first transfer, a team of veterinary and animal care experts from the receiving facilities traveled to Marineland to collaborate with the park’s former caretakers and review years of detailed health records for every whale, crafting personalized care plans for each animal.

    “This is a very complex and unprecedented rescue effort. This has never been done before,” explained Charlie Jacobsma, Shedd Aquarium’s director of animal behavior and training. To support a smooth social transition for the highly social belugas, Jacobsma noted that the new arrivals were first introduced to the aquarium’s existing resident belugas through controlled gated interactions, allowing the animals to gradually select their own social groups before sharing a full habitat. Currently, the eight relocated belugas share space with three long-term resident belugas at Shedd, and caretakers have already observed positive social engagement, including affiliative behaviors and the iconic vocalizations belugas use to communicate.

    “Belugas are very social animals,” Jacobsma said. “It was really special to be able to see some of our animals pairing up with these new animals.”

    Veterinary staff at Shedd are providing round-the-clock care to help the new arrivals adjust to their new environment, monitoring the whales’ health and behavior constantly throughout the transition period. “All the belugas are taking the adjustment to their new home day by day,” said Dr. Karisa Tang, Shedd’s lead veterinarian. The care team tracks the whales’ food intake, social interactions, and physical comfort minute by minute, checking for signs of stress, soreness, or injury, and looking for indicators of well-being such as calm, relaxed swimming patterns.

    Tang added that belugas’ distinct expressive faces and individual personalities make the work particularly rewarding for the Shedd team. “Every single day it is an absolute joy to work with belugas. There’s something about them that seems magical,” she said.

    Once complete, the full rescue effort will disperse Marineland’s remaining belugas and dolphins across five partner facilities: Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, SeaWorld parks in San Antonio and San Diego, and Oceanografic Valencia in Spain, giving each animal a permanent new home in accredited, welfare-focused facilities.

  • Peru steps up fight against illegal gold mining as activity enters protected Amazon reserve

    Peru steps up fight against illegal gold mining as activity enters protected Amazon reserve

    In the biodiverse Amazon heartland of Peru’s Madre de Dios region, an aggressive new government push to roll back illegal gold mining is underway, with Peruvian Navy special patrols launching multi-day raids deep into protected zones along the Malinowski River earlier this month. On August 11, 2026, eight navy commandos rappelled from a military helicopter into a clearing hacked out of old-growth rainforest by unauthorized mining operations, touching down in a landscape already scarred by the extractive industry. What greeted the troops was a devastating scene: massive craters gouged into the forest floor, filled with murky, polluted water where gasoline and toxic chemicals rested in glistening, contaminated slicks on the surface. Makeshift wooden mining platforms jutted out across these toxic pools, ringed by industrial pumps and thick plastic hoses designed to suck up river and soil sediment to sift out tiny flecks of profitable gold. As patrol members advanced on the site, a handful of miners lingered at the tree line watching the incursion. After the operation’s lead officer fired a single warning shot into the humid Amazon air, the group melted into the dense forest within seconds, leaving their operation and camp abandoned in a rush. Behind the fleeing miners, the navy found a hastily vacated settlement scattered with personal effects and supplies: crushed beer cans and empty liquor bottles littered the ground alongside half-eaten lunches of rice and plantain left in plastic containers, discarded mattresses, work clothes, and mining tools. Freezers, large fuel canisters, and even live chickens and guinea pigs kept for sustenance were all left behind as the miners fled. This raid was one of eight simultaneous deployments, with helicopters ferrying separate patrol teams to distinct drop-off points along the river before lifting off to reach the next target. Illegal gold mining has devastated vast swathes of Madre de Dios, one of Peru’s most ecologically rich regions, leaving behind a moonscape of contaminated waterways and reshaped river systems in the hunt for lucrative gold deposits. Most alarmingly, the activity has pushed steadily deeper into protected Amazon reserves, putting irreplaceable biodiversity and Indigenous communities at severe risk. Mercury, a toxic chemical widely used by illegal miners to separate gold from sediment, has seeped into rivers, accumulated in wildlife, and poisoned local populations, including Indigenous groups that rely on river fish as a primary food source. Edy Reynaldo Dariquebe, a senior official with FENAMAD, the regional Indigenous federation representing Madre de Dios communities, confirmed that criminal networks tied to illegal mining have already established operations near and inside protected Indigenous territories. “Mining is destroying our forests and poisoning our rivers with mercury that ends up in the fish we eat,” Dariquebe explained, noting that contamination spreads far beyond the immediate mining sites to impact communities hundreds of kilometers away. Ronald Flores Yáñez, deputy prosecutor with Peru’s Attorney General’s Office, told the Associated Press that illegal mining operations have advanced as far as military monitoring outposts and crossed into formally protected protected land. “We can confirm today that they have already entered the Tambopata National Reserve,” Flores said during an interview on site. “We are standing inside the reserve right now, and all around us we see hundreds of illegal mining dredges operating.” Peru first launched a large-scale military and police crackdown on illegal mining, dubbed Operation Mercury, in 2019, which successfully reduced unauthorized extraction across much of Madre de Dios. But in recent years, miners have gradually reoccupied territory and pushed farther into protected areas, prompting authorities to ramp up enforcement operations once again. Global Conservation, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit partnering with Peruvian authorities, outlined that the new campaign will combine satellite surveillance, aerial reconnaissance, and sustained law enforcement raids over the next 12 months to map, target, and dismantle illegal mining camps and infrastructure. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Renato Miranda, who oversaw the August 11 mission, told troops during a pre-operation briefing that the core goal of the raids is to “neutralize and dismantle” all illegal mining activity. On the ground, this means systematically targeting the critical equipment that allows operations to run: pumps, batteries, fuel stockpiles, dredging gear, and all makeshift camp infrastructure. “The most important thing we can do is destroy the primary machinery,” Miranda explained. “And that machinery is the motors.” High-powered industrial engines are the most valuable piece of equipment for illegal miners, making them the most economically impactful target for authorities aiming to raise the cost of restarting operations. Larger mining motors can cost between $30,000 and $45,000 to purchase, and are capable of extracting 30 to 50 grams of gold per day — a haul worth roughly $4,000 to $7,000 at current gold market prices. Over the previous three months, officers told the AP that navy patrols have destroyed approximately 115 motors during near-weekly operations across the region. The remote, hard-to-reach location of most mining camps gives miners advance warning of approaching helicopters or patrol boats, allowing them to flee and often hide valuable motors under sand, behind foliage, or at the bottom of murky mining pools to recover later. To counter this, the navy deploys specialized divers to search the contaminated pools for submerged engines, even though the water is often laced with mercury and other toxic chemicals. When an engine is located, teams attach explosive charges and destroy it on site. During the August 11 raid, one soldier spotted disturbed sand on the bank of a mining pool and uncovered a hidden motor after digging. The engine was dragged to a pile of seized equipment, doused in gasoline, and set alight alongside a discarded mattress and chainsaw. One unexpected discovery, a stray dog abandoned by miners, was rescued by the team, who brought the animal along on the rest of the mission and back to their base after the operation. Across the operation zone, troops used explosives to destroy mining equipment and burned all reusable structures and supplies that could allow miners to reoccupy the camps. A 10-minute boat ride from the first raid site, a second, larger illegal mining camp offered a raw look at daily life for people working in the sector. A full chest freezer stocked with meat, wooden shelves holding kitchenware, and separate sleeping quarters scattered with personal items were all seized before being burned: a handwritten ledger of supply orders, freshly laundered underwear hanging to dry, vitamin bottles, and even over-the-counter pills marketed to boost sexual performance were all destroyed. Before moving to their next target, several soldiers cooked and ate preserved food found in the camp’s freezers. While the industry generates massive profits for criminal financiers, most rank-and-file workers live and labor in extremely precarious conditions. During the operation, one patrol encountered a young woman with her 1-year-old child at a small mining site. Prosecutor Flores told the AP that the woman had traveled to Madre de Dios from Cusco after being rejected from university, was abandoned by her child’s father, and took a job advertising for a cook to support herself, only to end up working for the illegal mining operation. While destroying high-value mining equipment is designed to hit criminal operators in their bottom line and raise the cost of restarting operations, Peruvian authorities acknowledge that enforcement raids alone cannot end the illegal mining crisis. With global gold prices remaining at sustained high levels, extraction remains extremely profitable, meaning operators can easily afford to purchase new engines and rebuild their operations in the same location or shift to a new untouched area of the forest after authorities leave. “Every single day, they advance more and more, and our response is far too slow,” Flores said, noting that a fundamental shift in enforcement strategy is needed. Prosecutors are now pursuing a two-pronged approach to break the repeating cycle of equipment destruction, miner return, and further deforestation: they will continue targeting mining equipment while also pursuing the financial networks that fund the trade, identifying the wealthy backers who put up capital for expensive machinery and tracing the flow of profits from illegally mined gold. “These operations have to be permanent,” Flores emphasized. This coverage of climate and environmental issues by the Associated Press receives funding from multiple private foundations, with AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • The livin’ is no longer so easy: How carefree dreams of ‘summertime’ are fading in 2026’s swelter

    The livin’ is no longer so easy: How carefree dreams of ‘summertime’ are fading in 2026’s swelter

    LONDON – For generations, summer has been synonymous with unhurried days, sun-drenched nights and fleeting freedom from work, school and daily obligations. But in 2026, that idyllic vision of summer is fading, replaced by a season defined by extreme heat, climate-driven disaster and constant adaptation to a warming world.

    The calendar still marks summer as a seasonal staple, but climate change fueled by fossil fuel emissions has pushed global temperatures to unprecedented heights. Heat-drenched conditions are becoming the new normal, breaking temperature records across every continent. These soaring temperatures are triggering cascading crises: Arctic ice sheets are melting at accelerated rates, severe droughts parch vast swathes of land, wildfires burn with greater intensity across North America and Europe, and stronger, more destructive storm systems form with increasing frequency. For millions of vulnerable people who lack access to air conditioning, paid time off or the means to escape to cooler destinations, the heat poses a direct, daily threat to safety and health. In Asia, the extreme heat has grown so unrelenting that Japan has introduced a new official weather classification for dangerous heat: *kokusho-bi*, or “cruelly hot day.”

    This year, it is the romanticized ideal of summer that has withered like parched grass across England. For many people across the globe, the Summer of 2026 has brought a quiet grief for the loss of that uncomplicated seasonal freedom – and the relaxed, carefree version of ourselves we get to be only when we feel safe under the sun.

    “I mourn for the way summer used to be,” wrote climate fiction author Debra Denker in a recent essay reflecting on the leisurely afternoons and 1960s-era Fourth of July neighborhood block parties of her youth. “Unless we change the trajectory we’re on, today’s children will never know the gentle and balmy summers of my childhood … I feel sad that they may never know the truly carefree summers that the more privileged among us enjoyed.”

    Related extreme heat events are already unfolding across the world this year: oppressive heat and humidity have blanketed much of the U.S. as students return to the classroom, multiple European nations are battling concurrent large-scale wildfires amid record-breaking temperatures, and British firefighters have been deployed in full force to contain blazes on the UK’s hottest day of the year.

    No formal meteorological data is needed to confirm that summer 2026 is fundamentally different from the past, and long-held seasonal rituals are being rewritten. Downwind of out-of-control wildfires in North America and Europe, skies turn a hazy orange and the air carries a gritty, acrid taste. Even in Paris, one of the world’s most beloved summer travel destinations, sweltering conditions under the city’s iconic gray rooftops can turn deadly for vulnerable residents. Nights have become a miserable cycle of fitful sleep, cold showers, and opening windows just to close them again to block out urban street noise.

    The once-life-giving summer sun now poses a hazard for most of the day, and checking the local air quality index has become a required first step before stepping outside. People have shifted their routines to complete outdoor work and errands early in the morning, staying indoors through the peak heat hours and staying awake later into the cool night. A full day at the beach, or a traditional August European summer holiday, is now less a leisurely escape and more an exercise in risk management.

    New polling from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that far more Americans report that extreme heat has disrupted their travel plans, raised electricity costs, disturbed their sleep, and altered family outdoor activities and daily routines than was the case just two years ago in July 2024. Research from Oxford University, published in July 2026, confirms that intense heat is reshaping daily behavior on a global scale: these routine adaptations to extreme heat are already common across seven of the nations most at risk from heat waves: Brazil, China, France, India, Nigeria, Turkey and the United States.

    For many people, this transformed summer is a source of deep discontent. Amber Risebrow, a teacher based in Britain’s Channel Islands, says she longs for the traditional, idyllic British warm season, when sunlight lingers long into the evening. “I wanted the long light evenings and the sunshine and the not-dark-at-4pm of it all,” she shared in a recent Instagram post. “What I did not want was to feel like a rotisserie chicken every single time I stepped outside. Slowly rotating. Gently basting. Questioning my life choices by 10am.”

    The data leaves no room for doubt: the long-term trend points to increasingly hot, storm-prone summers. In just one week this summer, extreme heat battered the UK and France, with temperatures climbing close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). It marked the fifth major heat wave of the year for the region, where central air conditioning remains rare in most homes. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that July 2026 was the hottest single month ever recorded in the contiguous United States.

    Globally, 2026 is currently the third-hottest year on record, trailing only 2024 and 2025, according to official climate statistics. But with five months still left in the year, 2026 has time to overtake those previous records. Scientists note that the combined force of accelerating human-caused global warming and an unusually strong El Niño – a periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters that drives temperature increases worldwide – makes it increasingly likely that 2026 will end the year as the hottest year ever recorded in human history.

    “And it’s not just extreme heat,” Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters in Geneva. “We’re also seeing extreme rainfall, tropical cyclones. So we’re not in holiday mode at all.”

    Many people have come to accept that life-threatening, travel-disrupting heat waves and their ripple effects are no longer a one-time anomaly, but the new normal. In response, communities and individuals have adopted a range of adaptation strategies, with many hoping that adjusting to the heat can preserve at least a shadow of the traditional summertime feeling – for now.

    Official advisories urging tourists to avoid outdoor activity during the hottest peak hours have become a standard addition to travel guidance from Cambodia to Cambridge, UK. Dog walking is increasingly restricted to dawn and dusk, with governments in high-heat zones warning owners against midday outings that can put pets at risk of heat stroke. Employers and workers have also adjusted: agricultural and construction workers have shifted their schedules to earlier morning hours, and many workplaces now allow remote work when temperatures become dangerously high.

    But for low-income and vulnerable workers without access to air conditioning at home, even indoor space offers little relief. Only around 4% of British households have air conditioning, compared to roughly 90% of homes in the United States, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.

    This reality makes clear that accessing the old-fashioned summertime bliss of popular imagination has always been a privilege reserved for those with the means to escape the worst effects of heat. In an essay published last year, comedy writer Elizabeth Simone addressed this gap in a piece titled *An Open Letter to the Person Who Asked Me What I’m Doing For The Summer As If I Didn’t Have to Work*, published in the Weekly Humorist. “You do know that summer vacation is an outdated sham, right?” she wrote. “Obviously it’s because of what summer meant back when we were kids.”

    Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed reporting from Tokyo.

  • Europe wildfires: latest developments

    Europe wildfires: latest developments

    As a brutal summer heatwave continues to grip the European continent, nations across the region are locked in an urgent battle against a rapidly spreading wave of wildfires that have forced mass evacuations, destroyed residential property, and put irreplaceable cultural heritage sites at risk. Scientists have already labeled this summer as one of the hottest in recorded history for Europe, which is warming faster than any other continent on Earth — a trend that has exacerbated drought conditions, turned landscapes into tinderboxes, and created the perfect environment for uncontrollable blazes to ignite and spread. This extreme weather event has already been linked to thousands of heat-related deaths across the continent, and the wildfire risk shows no sign of abating.

    According to calculations from Agence France-Presse, Friday offered no reprieve from the sweltering conditions, with an estimated 150 million people across France, Germany, Spain, and Italy forecast to face temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius. Below is a breakdown of the latest wildfire developments across the most affected regions:

    In coastal Croatia, firefighting teams are confronting what the nation’s fire chief Slavko Tucakovic described as one of the most destructive wildfires in the country’s modern history. The fast-moving blaze has already consumed dozens of residential homes, left 19 people injured, and forced the evacuation of approximately 2,000 residents from nearby hilltop villages. When access to the area reopened mid-morning, AFP reporters on the scene witnessed the charred remains of multiple burnt-out vehicles along roads near the town of Omis, with some reduced to pools of melted silver metal from the fire’s extreme heat.

    In northeastern Spain, a blaze that ignited earlier this week in the Aragon region has already forced 850 people to flee their homes, and is now encroaching on the iconic San Juan de la Pena monasteries. The older of the two 10th-century sites is considered a defining cultural symbol of Aragon, and holds the remains of the medieval kingdom’s first monarchs. As a precautionary measure, all royal remains and historic artifacts have already been moved to safety ahead of the approaching flames.

    Western Germany has also been hit hard, with local officials confirming that a single wildfire near the town of Huertgenwald, close to the Belgian and Dutch borders, forced roughly 1,800 residents to evacuate overnight. The blaze exploded in size from just 25 hectares to more than 300 hectares by Friday morning, prompting authorities to deploy military equipment and helicopters to support firefighting efforts. Witnesses reported thick plumes of smoke with ash falling steadily from the sky, describing an overwhelming sense of alarm. Further east in North Rhine-Westphalia, another 100 emergency workers were battling a separate large wildfire near the popular Moehnesee lake.

    France, which has already faced dozens of major wildfire outbreaks throughout the 2023 summer season, is now tackling a new blaze in its southwestern Landes department that has burned more than 1,100 hectares of land and forced more than 500 people to evacuate as it approaches the village of Luglon.

    The Balkan region is also grappling with expanding blazes, as the record heatwave worsens long-running drought conditions across Montenegro and Albania. Montenegrin emergency crews have been fighting coastal wildfires for several consecutive days, while new blazes were reported just outside of Albania’s capital city of Tirana on Thursday.

    In the United Kingdom, National Fire Chiefs Council leadership warned that British firefighters are operating under significant pressure, with multiple simultaneous wildfires spreading across the country amid soaring temperatures and widespread drought. On Thursday, the UK’s hottest day of the year to date, a large blaze near Stourbridge in central England left fields scorched and multiple homes destroyed, and sent three firefighters to hospital for treatment.

    In northern Greece, a forest fire approaching two popular coastal tourist resorts prompted a mass evacuation on Thursday, with roughly 500 beachgoers and tourists rescued by a fleet of small fishing and recreational boats. Many evacuees were still wearing swimwear as they were transported to safer nearby beaches, while around 200 people were taken to a larger waiting ship offshore. Hundreds of firefighters remain on the ground working to contain the blaze.

  • Latest developments: Europe battles wildfires

    Latest developments: Europe battles wildfires

    On Friday, nations across the European continent launched coordinated emergency responses to a surge of uncontrolled wildfires, fueled by record-breaking high temperatures and parched, flammable vegetation that has created near-ideal conditions for catastrophic blazes to spread. As the world’s fastest-warming continent, Europe has long faced growing gaps in infrastructure and preparedness to handle the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events, a crisis that climate scientists overwhelmingly link to anthropogenic climate change.

    This summer of unrelenting heat and rampant wildfires has already entered the history books as one of the most deadly on record, with thousands of heat and fire-related fatalities recorded across the region. AFP analysis drawing on data from Germany’s national weather service and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre reveals that on Friday alone, roughly 150 million people across France, Germany, Spain, Italy and other high-risk nations faced air temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius. Even more startling, around 350 million European residents – three out of every five people living on the continent excluding Turkey – experienced temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius.

    In France, which has already endured a string of massive, destructive blazes already this wildfire season, a new outbreak ignited in the country’s southwest on Friday. Local officials confirmed that the fast-moving fire forced more than 500 residents to evacuate their homes immediately. The blaze has already consumed 1,100 hectares (approximately 2,700 acres) of land in the Landes department, and was advancing toward the small village of Luglon as of Friday afternoon. Regional fire chief Arnaud Fabre noted that the spread of the fire had slowed, but warned that forecasted local temperatures as high as 36 degrees Celsius created a high risk of dangerous flare-ups in the coming hours. This new emergency comes as the vast majority of France remains in the grip of a prolonged, extreme heatwave.

    Western Germany also faced a rapidly escalating wildfire crisis Friday, with local officials ordering the evacuation of approximately 1,800 residents from their homes overnight. Firefighting operations deployed military equipment and helicopter support to contain the blaze, which originated near the town of Huertgenwald, close to Germany’s borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. By Friday morning, the fire had expanded dramatically from an initial 25 hectares (around 60 acres) to 300 hectares, prompting the full evacuation of one of the town’s districts. Southwestern Germany has been one of the hardest-hit regions across the continent this summer, with sustained high temperatures and record low rainfall drying out farmland and pushing river levels to dangerous multi-decade lows.

    Across the English Channel, the United Kingdom’s firefighting infrastructure was pushed to breaking point, according to the head of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC). NFCC leadership confirmed that firefighters were operating under “significant pressure” as multiple concurrent wildfires spread across the country against a backdrop of soaring temperatures and widespread drought conditions. On Thursday, which marked the UK’s hottest day of the year to date, a large blaze in the central English town of Stourbridge left a trail of destruction that included charred agricultural fields and destroyed residential properties. Three firefighters responding to that blaze, located southwest of Birmingham, were admitted to hospital for treatment of injuries sustained while fighting the fire.

    Croatia is confronting what national fire chief Slavko Tucakovic described as one of the worst wildfires in the country’s modern history. The coastal blaze has already destroyed multiple residential buildings and left 19 people injured, according to local reports. At least 1,000 people displaced by the fire near the coastal town of Omis, located south of the major coastal city of Split, were relocated to a temporary shelter set up in a local sports hall. Tucakovic mobilized additional firefighting teams from across the country to reinforce frontline crews working at the scene, while four Canadair water-bombing aircraft were placed on standby to support containment operations. The same air fleet helped bring a separate wildfire on the nearby island of Brac under full control by Thursday evening.

    In northern Greece, a fleet of civilian small craft carried out a dramatic evacuation of roughly 500 tourists from coastal beaches on Thursday, after a large forest fire advanced toward two popular tourist resorts. Hundreds of firefighters, two of whom sustained injuries while battling the flames, worked alongside water-bombing aircraft for hours to contain the blaze on the Halkidiki peninsula, located south of the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, successfully stopping the fire from spreading across the entire peninsula. Local officials and Greece’s public broadcaster ERT reported that tourists, many still wearing their bathing suits and carrying small children, were ferried to safe nearby beaches, while approximately 200 evacuees were brought to a waiting passenger ship anchored offshore for shelter.

  • France and England battle multiple wildfires as record heat grips Europe

    France and England battle multiple wildfires as record heat grips Europe

    A punishing new wave of record-shattering heat has swept across large swathes of Western Europe this week, creating tinder-dry conditions that have ignited dozens of destructive wildfires stretching from southwestern France to coastal Croatia, overwhelming firefighting teams and forcing thousands of residents and tourists to flee their homes.

    France, which is already enduring its driest calendar year on record, has been one of the hardest-hit regions. Overnight Thursday into Friday, a fast-moving wildfire tore through vast woodland areas in Landes, a coastal region in the country’s southwest. Local regional authorities confirmed Friday that the blaze forced more than 500 residents of the town of Luglon to evacuate their properties, as hundreds of firefighters were deployed to contain the spread. This blaze is just one of multiple major wildfires burning through forested land across France this week, with even normally cool, wet regions in northern France and Brittany seeing major outbreaks. Last month, a catastrophic, historic wildfire near the southwestern city of Bordeaux destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and displaced 250,000 people.

    Across the English Channel, the United Kingdom recorded its hottest day of the year Thursday, with temperatures hitting 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in west London. That same heat fueled wildfires across the West Midlands of central England, where multiple residential properties were completely destroyed by flames. Simon Tuhill, chief fire officer for the region, described the outbreak as one of the most significant wildfire incidents the service has ever responded to. New data from the UK’s National Fire Chiefs Council shows 1,017 wildfires have broken out across England and Wales since the start of 2024.

    The extreme heat has spread beyond France and the UK, devastating parts of Southern Europe as well. On the Croatian Adriatic coast, a wildfire fanned by strong gusts of wind erupted overnight Thursday near the coastal town of Omis, spreading rapidly toward the town center. The blaze forced more than 1,000 residents to evacuate, cut power to parts of Omis, destroyed dozens of vehicles, and even ignited fires on anchored boats, leading some evacuees to jump into the Adriatic Sea to escape. By early Friday, 36 people had sought medical treatment for fire-related injuries, 14 were admitted to hospitals, and seven remained in critical, life-threatening condition. Firefighters managed to contain the Omis blaze by Friday morning, but air crews were immediately dispatched further south to the Peljesac peninsula, where a second large wildfire broke out overnight.

    Further east in northern Greece, a wildfire swept through a coastal pine forest Thursday, threatening residential and tourist properties. Authorities evacuated more than 300 vacationers and local residents by sea to safety.

    Meteorologists across the continent recorded near-record temperatures Thursday, with parts of France ranging from southwestern Aquitaine to the eastern Rhone River valley hitting 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit). Forecasters predicted temperatures would hold near those extreme levels Friday before cooling over the weekend. Climate scientists have repeatedly linked this type of extreme heat event across Europe to human-caused climate change, noting that many European nations, accustomed to long, cool winters and moderate summer temperatures, remain poorly equipped to handle prolonged extreme heat, with most residential and public buildings lacking air conditioning.

  • ‘Unprecedented’ rains in Japan kill four people

    ‘Unprecedented’ rains in Japan kill four people

    One of the most extreme rainfall events in modern Japanese history has devastated Chiba Prefecture, the populous eastern region adjacent to Tokyo, leaving at least four people dead and five others injured after days of unprecedented downpour.

    Local officials first activated Japan’s highest-level Level 5 emergency warning on Thursday as hourly rainfall topped 100mm – three times the average August precipitation for the region and the highest hourly accumulation ever recorded in the country. By Friday morning, the alert was stepped down to Level 4, but authorities continued to urge caution, warning that residual risks of landslides and flash flooding remained high across the area.

    The extreme weather has left widespread disruption in its wake: more than 20,000 households lost power, more than 100,000 households were ordered to evacuate, and roughly 7,000 air travelers were stranded overnight at Tokyo’s major Narita International Airport as transport networks collapsed. Vehicles were left abandoned on inundated streets in the city of Oamishirasato, while around 1,800 residents took shelter overnight at the Chiba Prefectural Government building. Rail lines and major highways remained out of service on Friday morning, though airport officials confirmed that regular flight operations were set to resume by the end of the day, with only minor delays expected from major carriers.

    Japan Meteorological Agency experts explained that the extreme downpour formed when warm, moisture-heavy air flowing into eastern Japan collided with upper-level cold air, creating highly unstable atmospheric conditions that prolonged the rain. Forecasters projected the rainfall would continue through late Friday.

    Chiba Governor Toshihito Kumagai described the event as an extraordinary anomaly even for a disaster-prone nation like Japan. “This case was an extremely unusual situation, even by Japan’s historical weather standards,” Kumagai told reporters Friday. “I have responded to many disasters in the past, but I have never experienced a case like this.” The governor confirmed that search and rescue operations would remain the top priority for local authorities in the coming days.

    Local resident accounts highlight the sudden and destructive nature of the flood. One small business owner in Ichikawa city told public broadcaster NHK that the storm struck with no warning, leaving her concerned about the future of her enterprise amid extended power outages.

    The deadly Chiba deluge is part of a broader pattern of extreme storm activity across East Asia this week, forecasters confirm. The region is currently experiencing what has been projected to be an unusually active Pacific typhoon season, with three back-to-back storms – Dolphin, Chan-Hom, and Peilou – having swept across Japan, the Philippines, and China earlier this week.

    Storm Dolphin previously hit Japan’s Okinawa island, cutting power to tens of thousands of structures, felling trees, and forcing hundreds of flight cancellations. When the same system made landfall in eastern China over the weekend as the year’s strongest typhoon to hit the country, Chinese authorities evacuated more than one million residents to safety. To the south, Philippine officials have suspended classes and government operations across most of the country’s northern regions amid ongoing flood threats.

  • Europe swelters under fresh wave of extreme heat

    Europe swelters under fresh wave of extreme heat

    A punishing new wave of extreme heat has swept across Western and Southern Europe this Thursday, pushing temperatures into dangerous territory for hundreds of millions of residents and compounding ongoing risks of wildfires, heat-related illness, and systemic strain. The major affected regions span France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, where official weather data has already confirmed record-matching heat that has drawn urgent warnings from frontline healthcare workers and climate scientists alike.

    According to an analysis from Agence France-Presse (AFP), built on forecasting data from Germany’s national meteorological service Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) and 2025 population projections from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, nearly 340 million people across Europe (excluding Turkey) are expected to see temperatures climb above 30°C. Of that group, more than 135 million will face sweltering conditions exceeding 35°C, with peak temperatures in some areas pushing past 42°C. These findings align with data from Austrian non-profit climate monitoring group Klimadashboard, which maintains a public tracking tool for heat events across the continent. Experts from both organizations note that the official counts likely underestimate the true scale of impact, as the forecasting model’s 6.5-kilometer resolution does not capture the full intensity of urban heat island effects that make dense cities significantly hotter than surrounding rural areas.

    In the United Kingdom, the Met Office confirmed temperatures reached 38.1°C at London’s Kew Gardens, marking the fifth-hottest day recorded in the nation’s history. With 40 separate locations across central and southern England hitting 36°C or higher, the country is on track to log its hottest summer ever recorded, according to Met Office projections released earlier this week. Bailey Williamson, a 20-year-old pharmacist working for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), described unbearable conditions that are putting vulnerable hospital patients at acute risk. “People in beds are really, really sick, and they can’t even breathe because of the heat problem — so it’s really bad,” he told reporters. Williamson added that hospitals have already seen a sharp spike in heat stroke cases, and the overstretched NHS is struggling to meet the increased demand for care. Echoing the concern of many climate scientists, he called the recurring heatwaves a clear warning sign of how severe human-caused climate change has become. Visiting tourist Tim Wallace, who traveled to the UK from Australia, called the unprecedented heat worrying, noting that recurring hot summers would permanently alter local landscapes as climate change continues to drive global temperature rises.

    Across the English Channel, France recorded even more extreme highs on Thursday. National weather service Meteo-France logged a peak temperature of 42.5°C in the central French town of Chateaumeillant, the highest reading in the country that day. The capital Paris hit 38°C, and most of the nation remains under active heatwave alerts. In Italy, forecasters project similar dangerous conditions will impact 29 million people, with the worst heat concentrated along the west coast, in the Po Valley, across southern Italy, and on the country’s major islands. Neighboring Spain on the Iberian Peninsula is also facing widespread sweltering conditions, with roughly 25 million residents affected. Spanish national weather agency Aemet recorded temperatures hitting 37°C across central regions of the country on Thursday.

    Beyond heat-related illness and systemic strain, the record-breaking heat has exacerbated wildfire risk across the continent, which is already facing a summer of historically severe blazes fueled by overlapping heatwaves and persistent drought. In northern Greece, hundreds of tourists were evacuated by boat this week after an out-of-control forest fire advanced on two popular coastal resorts. In the UK’s West Midlands region, firefighting crews worked around the clock to contain blazes that damaged residential properties amid ongoing dry, drought conditions.

    Climate scientists have long warned that Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, and many regions remain critically underprepared to handle the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events. Multiple studies have linked the growing severity of heatwaves to anthropogenic climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and deforestation. This summer’s recurring heat and drought have already contributed to thousands of heat-related deaths across the continent, alongside hundreds of thousands of hectares of land burned by wildfires.