Five deaths have been reported in Greece due to wildfires over the past two weeks, as Southern Europe battles the worst heatwave in recent memory.
Toxic smoke in Zamora province
In Spain, a fire at the Zaresa waste treatment plant in Roales del Pan, Zamora province, sent a thick column of toxic smoke into the air. Civil authorities issued ES-Alert warnings, advising residents to stay indoors. Police closed a lane on the A-11 motorway, while emergency dispatchers received nearly 40 calls reporting the fire. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.
The incident prompted an emergency response involving local authorities and the Civil Guard. Despite the alarming situation, Zaresa’s fire did not result in any casualties. Smoke dispersion and environmental monitoring remained a priority in the days that followed.
French reactors offline to protect river levels
Meanwhile, France has taken three nuclear reactors offline to maintain river flow levels. EDF, the national nuclear operator, cited environmental water regulations as the reason for the shutdowns. The reactors at the Chooz and Cattenom plants were among those affected, with decisions made to preserve water for public and industrial use.
The move comes as temperatures in the Ardennes and Moselle departments prompted a yellow heatwave alert. With 57 nuclear reactors accounting for nearly 70% of the country’s electricity, France’s reliance on river cooling systems makes the country vulnerable during prolonged heat events.
Greek wildfires among decade’s worst
To the south, Greece faces its most severe wildfire situation in over a decade, with more than 12,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land burned in the past week. The fires have killed at least five people and left communities in emergency lockdown.
Theodore Giannaros, a senior wildfire meteorologist, said the country is experiencing 'one of the worst fire crises' in recent history. While climate change is a major driver, he noted poor land management also plays a key role in the spread of these fires.
Over the past five days, firefighters in the western Attica and Boeotia regions of the Greek mainland—around 70 kilometres west of the capital Athens—have been battling to contain wildfires that have burned through more than 14,000 hectares of mostly forest land, with more than 100 homes destroyed or damaged. More than 1,000 people were evacuated from the area, including 300 rescued by sea after roads became impassable because of the fire. The western Attica fire was one of many raging across Greece over the past week. More than 70 broke out last Friday alone. On July 29, a fire near the town of Rethymno in the southern island of Crete resulted in the burning of thousands of hectares and the evacuation of over 8,000 residents and tourists. The previous day a major fire on Paros spread across around 1,000 hectares, around 5 percent of the island. The ferocity of the fires has been driven by the extreme summer heat, leaving vegetation exceptionally dry, coupled with strong seasonal winds that have enabled the fires to spread quickly, making firefighting exceptionally challenging. On Sunday two firefighters were killed in western Attica after two helicopters collided during fire suppression operations over the village of Psatha. Last week two firefighters were killed in Crete after becoming trapped by the fire while driving between fronts. A fifth firefighter was killed last week in a separate fire in the Peloponnese region in southern Greece. By August 3, according to Copernicus mapping, the western Attica fire had burned some 13,290 hectares. After repeated and ever more violent fires, much of Greece’s forests face extinction. According to the National Observatory of Athens, a staggering 42 percent of Attica’s forested area has burned in the past decade. Though the worst fires appear contained on the surface, the threat remains.
Severe fire and drought conditions have threatened nuclear-powered energy supply in three countries. Fire broke out at Dunwich Heath on England’s Suffolk coast on the evening of July 29—coming within three miles of the Sizewell B nuclear plant, which supplies around 3 percent of UK electricity, and close to the Sizewell C construction site. Within a day the blaze had grown to roughly 150 hectares. Suffolk Fire and Rescue deployed 18 engines and more than 100 firefighters, with crews drafted from as far as London. Firefighters were only able to contain the fire by using bulldozers, tractors lent by local farmers, and vehicles supplied by the operators of Sizewell B and C to cut 15-metre firebreaks around the site over the weekend of August 1–2. As of Wednesday, the fire remained a major incident, with underground hotspots still burning at around 600°C. Drought conditions have shrunk many European rivers. Record-low levels on the Danube have deprived two nuclear plants of cooling water. Hungary’s Paks plant, which supplies close to half the country’s electricity, cut output progressively from July 27, with individual reactor units taken offline through July 29 to August 1, leaving just one turbine connected.