‘The fire has such power’: why the wildfires gripping France and Spain are off the charts

Wildfires tearing through southwestern France and Spain have forced hundreds of thousands from their homes and killed at least three people, including two firefighters, according to The Conversation. The area burned in France is already forty percent larger than the previous record year, and satellite data shows July's fire energy output there is double the prior record. For the first time on record in France, the fires produced a pyrocumulonimbus — a fire-generated thunderstorm — that intensified the blazes further. The Conversation reports the region is in the grip of severe drought and heatwaves running four to five degrees Celsius above average, with another heatwave expected to arrive later this week.

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