Europe battles blazes and brutal heat as heatwave intensifies

(AFP): Firefighters mobilised in several countries to tackle blazes as southern Europeans sought shelter from punishing temperatures of a heatwave that is set to intensify in the coming days.

Fires broke out in France and Turkey Sunday, with other countries already on alert.

Authorities from Spain to Portugal, Italy and France urged people to seek shelter and protect the most vulnerable from the summer's first major heatwave.

Ambulances stood on standby near tourist hotspots as experts warned that such heatwaves, intensified by climate change, would become more frequent.

In Turkey, forest fires broke out Sunday afternoon in the western Izmir province, fed by strong winds, local media reported.

Firefighters backed by specially adapted planes were battling the blaze, but five neighbourhoods in the Seferihisar district had to be evacuated, said the local governor.

In France, wildfires broke out in the Corbieres area of Aude in the southwest, where temperatures topped 40 degrees (104F), forcing the evacuation of a campsite and abbey as a precaution.

Already last week, Greek firefighters had to battle a forest blaze on the coast south of Athens that forced some evacuations.

French weather service Meteo France put a record 84 out of the country's 101 regional departments on an orange heatwave alert -- the second-highest -- for Monday.

Spain's weather service AEMET said temperatures in Extremadura and Andalusia, in the south and southwest, had reached up to 44C Sunday.

In Madrid, where temperatures approached 40C, 32-year-old photographer Diego Radames told AFPTV: "I feel that the heat we're experiencing is not normal for this time of year.

"As the years go by, I have the feeling that Madrid is getting hotter and hotter, especially in the city centre," he added.

In Italy, 21 cities across the length of the country were on high alert for extreme heat, including Milan, Naples, Venice, Florence, Rome and Catania.

"We were supposed to be visiting the Colosseum, but my mum nearly fainted," said British tourist Anna Becker, who had travelled to Rome from a "muggy, miserable" Verona.

Hospital emergency departments across Italy have reported a 10-percent increase in heatstroke cases, according to Mario Guarino, vice president of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine.

"It is mainly elderly people, cancer patients or homeless people, presenting with dehydration, heat stroke, fatigue," he told AFP.

Several areas in the southern half of Portugal, including Lisbon, are under a red warning until Monday night, said the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).

Two-thirds of Portugal was also on high alert Sunday for extreme heat and forest fires -- as was the Italian island of Sicily, where firefighters tackled 15 blazes Saturday.

Scientists say climate change is stoking hotter and more intense heatwaves, particularly in cities where the so-called "urban heat island" effect amplifies temperatures among tightly packed buildings.

"The heat waves in the Mediterranean region have become more frequent and more intense in recent years," said Emanuela Piervitali, a researcher at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).

"A further increase in temperature and heat extremes is expected in the future, so we will have to get used to temperatures with peaks even higher than those we are experiencing now," she told AFP.

The heat is also attracting invasive species, which are thriving in the more tropical climes.

ISPRA launched a campaign this week urging fishermen and tourists alike to report sightings of four "potentially dangerous" venomous species.

The lionfish, silver-cheeked toadfish, dusky spinefoot and marbled spinefoot are beginning to appear in waters off southern Italy as the Mediterranean warms, it said.

In France, experts warned that the heat was also severely hitting biodiversity.

"We are taking in birds in difficulty everywhere; our seven care centres are saturated," said Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO).