Wildfires could engulf “all of Europe” within days, the head of the EU’s Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre warned on Thursday.
Large fires are burning in countries including France, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Germany, with more on the horizon amid extreme heat conditions. Maria Zuber, who is leading the EU response to the blazes, said the risk was “moving to Greece and also central Europe”.
“Italy will face risk at the beginning of August, and we will need to see what will happen with the Iberian Peninsula, because if [it is] there as well, we will have all Europe on fire,” said Zuber, the head of the EU’s Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre.
Even as vast fires are contained in France’s Bordeaux region and on the border between Madrid and Castilla y León in Spain, new blazes are igniting thanks to tinder-dry conditions and a string of intense heatwaves in the world’s fastest warming continent.
An advancing wildfire in Zamora province of Spain (Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters)
