By Antonio Bronic
OMIS, Croatia, Aug 14 (Reuters) – A wildfire engulfed homes in a picturesque Croatian resort overnight, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to evacuate, officials said, as EU officials warned that pockets of “very extreme” wildfire conditions were stretching right across the continent.
Hundreds more were evacuated from a beach resort in northern Greece and from a village in southwest France, while a major grass fire engulfed houses in England, officials said.
Record-breaking heat and drought that scientists link to climate change have created ideal conditions for wildfires across Europe this summer, especially in France, Spain and Greece. The Balkans region has also endured several heatwaves.
FLAMES TURN NIGHT SKY RED ABOVE CROATIAN RESORT
Flames enveloped settlements and trees over 1,000 hectares, around Omis, a scenic town on Croatia’s prized Dalmatian coast surrounded by trees and rocky hills, officials said. The blaze turned the night sky red.
The fire “swept everything in its way … there has been huge material damage,” Chief Fire Commander Slavko Tucakovic said. The fire appeared to have calmed on Friday morning with no open flames, he added.
Of 40 people treated by ambulance services, seven were in a serious condition, health officials said.
DINGHIES HELP IN RESCUE FROM GREEK SEASIDE TOWN
In northern Greece, people wearing face masks, some clutching children or pets, boarded dinghies and boats in the seaside town of Siviri as the fire ate through a forest and columns of smoke turned the cloudless sky a dark grey.
The coast guard said that more than 300 people had been evacuated by boat from the town, which sits on a picturesque peninsula of woodland, olive groves and beaches south of Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki.
More than 140 firefighters, nine aircraft and seven helicopters were deployed to battle flames, while fishing vessels took part in the evacuation.
In France, authorities evacuated 525 people from the village of Luglon after a wildfire broke out in the southwestern Landes region, not far from an area already devastated by major blazes this summer.
Authorities in Spain removed the remains of three kings who ruled the Aragón region in the 11th century from a monastery threatened by a wildfire.
‘VERY EXTREME’ WILDFIRE CONDITIONS ACROSS EUROPE
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warned of “very extreme” conditions across a large area of central and eastern Europe, with additional pockets over southern Britain, Ireland, northern France and southern Sweden, in its outlook for the week to August 19.
The average high across Western Europe on Friday was forecast to be 31.2 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 8 C (14 F) above what was typical from 1961 to 1990, data from the Reuters Climate Monitor showed. The temperature for Europe as a whole was 1.6 C (2.9 F) above the 1961-1990 average, it said.
The hot, dry summer is also taking a heavy toll on agriculture.
French grain maize production is on course to drop to its lowest since the 1970s, as severe summer heat and drought wither crops, growers’ group AGPM said.
(Reporting by Alexandros Litsardakis and Antonis Pothitos in Greece, Daria Sito-Sucic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Stephanie Lecocq and Gus Trompiz in France, Joan Faus in Spain; Writing by Conor Humphries)
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