Thousands flee wildfires in France and Spain as temperatures reach extreme levels in southern Europe

Brutal heat is torching southern Europe, and roughly thirty thousand people have now fled wildfires in France and Spain, The Guardian reports. In France, a blaze the paper describes as "particularly intense" on the country's southwestern Atlantic coast forced more than eighteen thousand eight hundred people from their homes, including thousands of tourists pulled out of campsites and holiday properties as firefighters battled to contain it. Spain has declared a national emergency around Madrid, according to The Guardian, while a marine heatwave has left parts of the Mediterranean Sea about five degrees Celsius hotter than normal. Researchers cited by the paper warn that "Dantesque" scenarios cannot be ruled out as the fires worsen.

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