Emergency teams in France continued to battle a major wildfire overnight after flames spread through the Fontainebleau forest, located south of Paris. Authorities said more than 400 firefighters worked through the night to contain the blaze, and that two waterbombing planes were dispatched on Monday to support operations as a heatwave affected western Europe.
The fire ignited alongside a highway near Fontainebleau - the town known for its historic royal palace - and by midnight had burned more than 800 hectares (1,980 acres). Officials said hot winds were fanning the flames, complicating containment efforts.
The blaze sits roughly 70 kilometres (43.5 miles) from central Paris and prompted the closure of the A6 motorway, a principal route linking Paris with Lyon and the south of the country. Authorities also reported that smaller fires in the vicinity disrupted high-speed train services.
Operational response
Fire services confirmed the ongoing nature of the operation on social media, saying: "The fight continues today." Local residents were briefed that the Canadair waterbombing planes would need to scoop water from the river Seine, which runs through central Paris, to refill during aerial suppression runs.
Regional context
Officials and observers have expressed concern about the frequency and intensity of heatwaves and record temperatures across Europe. Most scientists attribute the rising incidence of such fires to climate-driven drying across large parts of the continent, leaving vegetation susceptible to ignition.
Wildfires have already affected multiple countries this season, including France, Spain, Portugal and Greece, charring thousands of hectares. Over the weekend the death toll from a separate blaze in Spain's southeastern Almeria province rose to 13 after a 93-year-old British woman died of burns.
Western Europe is experiencing its third sustained spell of high temperatures this summer. Authorities have linked a late June heatwave to a likely thousands of excess deaths, with countries reporting more than 10,000 excess deaths overall. The heat has also contributed to disruptions in power supplies, school closures and broken temperature records in France, Spain and Britain.
Reflecting on the mortality figures, Lasse Vestergaard, chief physician at Denmark's Statens Serum Institut, which operates the EuroMOMO mortality surveillance network, said: "To have this kind of excess at this time of year is unusual. It’s really high." He added: "It is difficult to explain this high excess mortality by anything but the extreme \u00a0heat."
Authorities continued firefighting and containment efforts into the day while monitoring the potential for further spread amid persistent hot and dry conditions.