Europe burns as heatwave breaks temperature records

A fierce heatwave in western Europe on Monday left much of the continent wilting under a scorching sun, smashing temperature records and feeding ferocious forest wildfires.

In Britain, the 38.1 Celsius (100.9 Fahrenheit) in Suffolk, eastern England, made it the hottest day of the year and the third-hottest day on record.

Expectations are now high that the current British record of 38.7ºC could be broken and 40ºC breached for the first time, with experts blaming climate change and predicting more frequent extreme weather to come.

Across the Channel in France, a host of towns and cities recorded their highest-ever temperatures on Monday, the national weather office said.

The mercury hit 39.3ºC in Brest on the Atlantic coast of Britany, in the far northwest of the country, smashing a previous record of 35.1ºC from 2002.

Saint-Brieuc, on the Channel coast, hit 39.5ºC beating a previous record of 38.1ºC, and the western city of Nantes recorded 42ºC, beating a decades-old high of 40.3ºC, set in 1949.

Firefighters in France's southwest were still struggling in the crushing heat to contain two massive fires that have caused widespread destruction.

For nearly a week now, armies of firefighters and a fleet of waterbombing aircraft have battled blazes that have mobilised much of France's firefighting capacity.

Ireland saw temperatures of 33ºC in Dublin -- the highest since 1887 -- while in the Netherlands, temperatures reached 35.4ºC in the southern city of Westdorpe. While that was not a record, higher temperatures are expected there on Tuesday.

Neighbouring Belgium also expected temperatures of 40ºC and over.

The European heatwave is the second to engulf parts of the southwest of the continent in recent weeks.

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European Commission researchers meanwhile said nearly half (46 per cent) of EU territory was exposed to warning-level drought. Eleven percent was at an alert level and crops were already suffering from lack of water.

Blazes in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have destroyed thousands of hectares of land.

An area of nine kilometres (5.5 miles) long and eight kilometres wide was still ablaze near France's Dune de Pilat, Europe's highest sand dune, turning picturesque landscapes, popular campsites and pristine beaches into a scorching mess.

The blaze was literally "blowing things up", such was its ferocity, said Marc Vermeulen, head of the local fire service. "Pine trunks of 40 years are bursting."

A total of 8,000 people were being evacuated from near the dune Monday as a precaution, as changing winds blew thick smoke into residential areas, officials said.

Hurriedly packing her car, Patricia Monteil said she would go to her daughter's who lived in another part of the district. "But if that goes up in flames too, I don't know what to do."

Around 32,000 tourists or residents have been forced to decamp in France, many to emergency shelters.

On Monday evening, prosecutors in the southwest city of Bordeaux said a man suspected of having started one of the fires in the region had been taken into custody.

In Spain, fire burning in the northwestern province of Zamora claimed the life of a 69-year-old shepherd, regional authorities said. On Sunday, a fireman died in the same area.

Later on Monday it was reported that an office worker in his fifties had died from heatstroke in Madrid.