In Tarifa, Spain, thousands of vacationers were evacuated and residents confined to their homes. In Greece, the Peloponnese and the islands of Chios and Zakynthos were ravaged by flames. In Portugal, the government restricted access to forested areas and banned the use of agricultural equipment. In the Balkans, plumes of smoke were visible above Montenegro and Albania. In France, 16,000 hectares of land in the southern Aude department were burned in a fire that raged out of control for an extended period, while temperatures surpassed 40°C in dozens of towns. Sixteen Italian cities, including Rome and Venice, were placed on red alert due to the heat. The Madrid-Valencia rail line was blocked, and Intercités trains in France were halted due to malfunctioning air conditioning systems.

For the past week, southern European countries and the Mediterranean region have endured another severe heatwave, facing the consequences of this extreme event, made worse by human-caused climate change. In many areas, temperatures were oppressive: 45.5°C in Badajoz, southwestern Spain, on August 12 and over 40°C in Cantabria, a region in the far north. Winds exceeding 80 kilometers per hour (km/h), carrying air hotter than 40°C, swept across parts of Greece.

This new heatwave, widespread due to a massive anticyclonic blockage combined with a flow of air masses from Africa, followed a first heatwave at the end of June and another at the end of July over Italy and the Balkans. Just beyond the borders of geographical Europe, in Silopi, southeastern Turkey, the thermometer even reached 50.5°C on July 26.

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