Experts have warned that western France is facing a “heat catastrophe”, as extreme temperatures affect much of Europe.
Temperatures could reach record highs in 15 regions of the Southwest, with firefighters battling wildfires and thousands forced to evacuate.
Fires in Spain, Portugal and Greece have forced thousands of people to evacuate.
Record temperatures are also expected in parts of the UK, with the first ever extreme heat warning issued.
Forest fires in France have forced more than 16,000 people to leave the area in recent days, with emergency evacuation shelters set up.
Gironde, a popular tourist area in the southwest, has been particularly hard hit, with firefighters struggling to contain the blaze that has ravaged 14,000 hectares (34,000 acres) of land since last Tuesday.
We joined a convoy of journalists heading towards the coast towards the forest where the campsites had been abandoned by holidaymakers a few days earlier.
At first you could see clouds of smoke hanging in the forest but it was all relatively under control.
But, the further we went, the worse it got.
Suddenly there were endless pockets of fire on the side of the road. The trees were burning. Firefighters along the route were constantly trying to tackle the most serious hotspots.
They are trying to stop the fire spreading on the road. It is hot work in smoky conditions.
As we neared the shore, suddenly a roar was heard above our heads. It was a Canadian plane – a “water bomber”.
Six of them have been deployed to the area to help put out the fire. It seemed as if four or five passed over our heads, one sending a great burst of water to the ground below.
More than 1,000 deaths have occurred in recent days due to heat in Spain and Portugal.
In the central province of Zamora, where fires have been raging since the weekend, the body of a shepherd has been found in the Sierra de la Culebra mountain range. This is the second fatality in the Zamora fire after a 62-year-old firefighter died on Sunday.
A fire broke out at Mercedes Pino’s home near Pont de Velomara in the northeastern region of Catalonia.
“I was in bed and through the window I saw a very red light,” she told Spanish media. “I got to the door as fast as I could and I saw a caravan burning in front of the door.”
Wildfires have also broken out in Castilla y León, Galicia and Extremadura, as well as in the Mijas Hills near Malaga. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is scheduled to visit the latter region on Monday.
Temperatures reached 47C (116F) in Portugal on Thursday – a July record.
According to the National Meteorological Office IPMA, one-third of the land is still under severe fire danger. This is due to severe or severe droughts almost everywhere.
After the shock of June 2017, when 66 lives were lost in a fire, the top priority of emergency and civil defense commanders has been to act quickly to protect lives, resulting in more than 860 people in the north and south of their homes. They went out of the house.
The heatwave is the second to hit parts of southwestern Europe in recent weeks.
Heat waves are more frequent, more intense and last longer because of human-induced climate change.
The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the beginning of the industrial age, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments around the world drastically reduce emissions.
Enrique Sanchez, dean of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Biochemistry at Spain’s University of Castilla La Mancha, told that heatwaves will soon become the norm.
“In the long term, I mean in the coming years, there is no way that temperatures [will] rise, so heat wave events will become more and more common across Europe” he said.
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