Wildfires devastate Europe, Australia sends aid to France

Nearly a quarter of a million people were driven from their homes and vacation sites in France this week, as fires devastated 42,000 hectares of forest west of Bordeaux.

Europe is facing an extremely hot summer, fuelling wildfires from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean.

The United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey battled blazes this week, as El Niño is supplying additional heat into the Earth's atmosphere.

Cooler, more humid air moved into south-west France later in the week, allowing authorities to grant two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to return home.

But the ground still simmers in many places.

"It's stabilised, but not totally stopped," French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told RTL radio.

"Hot spots remain."

With his watering can and bucket, local Jean-François Pauner moved from one small fire to the next, dousing scattered flare-ups.

"This is the first fire I'm experiencing real-time, and I can tell you it's vicious," said the 64-year-old.

"No matter how much we try to extinguish it, re-extinguish it, re-extinguish it, it keeps restarting."

Australia sends aircraft, firefighters

Australia is sending aerial firefighting assets and teams to support French firefighters, the defence ministry announced on Friday.

A CH-47D Chinook helicopter, equipped with an 11,300-litre water tank, and a Bell 412 reconnaissance and support aircraft will be deployed to France.

The aircraft will accompanied by 24 aerial and ground crew from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

Federal Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain said France was a close and valued friend of Australia.

"Australia has some of the finest fire-fighting capability on the planet and we are only too happy to do whatever we can to assist, just as France came to our aid during the 2019-2020 Black Summer Bushfires," Ms McBain said.

The assistance is being provided in response to a request from the French government, with deployment taking place in the coming days.

Firefighters in Greece face raging winds

Firefighters in Greece are tackling 73 wildfires around the country, 51 of which broke out on Friday, local time.

The fire department said over 300 firefighters were operating in the area of Porto Germeno, some 70 kilometres north-west of Athens in the region of Viotia.

"The fire has reached the sea … homes have certainly been damaged," a fire department spokesman told AFP.

"The winds are very strong."

In the coastal village of Agios Vasileios, a fire broke out on Friday, causing some 300 people to require rescue by sea.

"The environmental damage is huge," the mayor of Thebes Giorgos Anastasiou told Open TV.

Wildfires have flared in several parts of the country this week, including on the popular island of Crete, where three firefighters lost their lives.

England, Wales set for driest July in 190 years

England and Wales are on course for the driest July since records began nearly 200 years ago, the Met Office said, amid a prolonged heatwave and exceptionally low rainfall.

"With more than half of England and the entirety of Wales officially in drought, the month has been characterised by an exceptional combination of extreme heat, abundant sunshine and an almost complete absence of rainfall in some areas," the nation's meteorological agency said.

Some counties across England have seen less than one millimetre of rain during the entire month of July.

According to provisional statistics, only 5.6 mm of rainfall was recorded in England in July as of Friday, less than half the previous driest record of 13.4 mm set in 1911.

In Wales, 7.9 mm of rainfall was recorded, almost a third of the 1911 record of 22.6 mm.