Police officers and firefighters arrive on the site of fire burning near La Bisbal de l’Emporda, northeastern Spain, on July 3, 2026. STRINGER / AFP
Hundreds of firefighters battled forest infernos in France, Spain and Portugal on Sunday, July 5, as temperatures rose again in heatwave-scarred Europe. The latest wildfires have already devastated more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land – twice the size of Manhattan – across the three countries where temperatures in some places were predicted to touch 40ºC on Sunday.
Authorities registered thousands of excess deaths during one of Europe's worst heatwaves in June, and with more extreme weather on the way, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has already expressed concern that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.
Read more Subscribers only Four graphs to visualize the unprecedented scale of France's June 2026 heatwave
'Smoking hotspots'
