Fires and heat in Europe, thousands of evacuees and hundreds of deaths

Thousands of people were evacuated due to the fires that broke out in southern Europe in particular and that destroyed a larger area of ​​the Aosta Valley, with a flow rate three times higher than the average of the last ten years. The most affected are Spain, Portugal and France. In addition, hundreds of people have lost their lives in the heat. In Portugal, for example, temperatures reaching 47 degrees Celsius have caused the deaths of at least 238 people in the last week alone, as explained by the Lisbon Ministry of Health. But a pilot also died in northern Portugal when his Fire Boss amphibious plane he was driving in an attempt to put out the flames crashed in the Foz Coa area near the Spanish border. It is the first victim of fires in Portugal, where at least 160 people were injured by the flames and hundreds were evacuated. The fires are also devastating several areas of the southwestern French region of Gironde, where more than 12,000 people have been evacuated. Strong winds, in fact, prevented the firefighters from putting out the fires. The flames that broke out south of Bordeaux devastated almost 10 thousand hectares. “The fire will continue to spread until it is stabilized,” said Vincent Ferrier, deputy prefect of Langon in Gironde. In Spain, firefighters were fighting a series of fires after days of unusually high temperatures reaching 45.7 Celsius degrees. In the south of the country, near the Costa del Sol, more than three thousand people have been evacuated from their homes due to a large fire near the city of Mijas. Many were taken to shelter in a sports center, emergency services said.