Europe burns and fires rage across London as 40C exceeded

Firefighters try to extinguish a wildfire next to the village of Tabara, near Zamora, northern Spain. Picture: Miguel Riopa/Getty Images

Fires raged across London as Britain shattered its high-temperature records, while the heatwave across continental Europe continued on its raging path.

The London Fire Brigade declared the English capital as a "major incident" zone following a number of fires, as forecasters ominously predicted temperatures could go as high as 42C, having broken the 40C mark for the first time. 

Heathrow surpassed 40C, while Network Rail issued a "do not travel" warning for some parts of the country, as upwards of 250 firefighters battled blazes at three locations around the capital. 

Trains from London's Euston were halted when overhead electric cables collapsed in Harrow, which Network Rail said was caused by the heat.

Ominously, the UK's Met Office warned that such heat extremes are now likely to be commonplace in the near future.

If Britain continues with a trajectory of high-emissions, it could see temperatures like this every three years, Met Office chief of science and technology, said Prof Stephen Belcher.

The scene of a blaze in the village of Wennington, east London. 

Meanwhile, across the sea in neighbouring France, a number of cities saw their hottest ever recorded days. More than 30,000 people have now had to evacuate, with a number of campsites destroyed.

Wildfires 'monster-like'

President of tourist hotspot Gironde in the south-west of France, Jean-Luc Gleyze, described terrifying wildfires as monster-like.

"It's a monster like an octopus, and it's growing and growing and growing in the front, in the back, on both sides," he said.

The mercury was expected to exceed 40C in parts of Belgium and Germany, while Portugal and Spain remain engulfed in various states of emergency, with more than 1,000 deaths attributed to the heatwave in the Iberian Peninsula.

Temperatures hit 47C in Portugal, a new national record for July, while Italian authorities are warning of temperatures to go as high as 42C by the end of the week.

Heatwaves are becoming such extraordinary and powerful standalone events that commentators have said they should be named, along the same lines as hurricanes and typhoons.

However, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has ruled such a move out in the immediate term, while acknowledging the merits of ranking and categorising such events and the possibility of such in the future.

"WMO is aware of current interest in developing heatwave ranking and naming systems. As the UN specialized agency responsible for weather, climate and water, the WMO exercises a leadership role in coordinating globally recognised extreme weather naming conventions. The WMO Services Commission is therefore currently considering the advantages and disadvantages of naming heatwaves," it said.

Scientists from the EU's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) are predicting very high levels of surface ozone pollution across a large region of Europe due to the high temperatures.

Ozone at the Earth’s surface is a key air pollutant that can affect human health, agriculture and even ecosystems, it said.

Such ozone pollution causes approximately one million additional deaths per year, CAMS senior scientist Mark Parrington said.