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A "monster" wildfire raged for a third day near France's heartland of Bordeaux on Thursday, with no let-up in blistering temperatures likely before the weekend.
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A silhouette is seen in front of flames at a wildfire near Belin-Beliet, southwestern France.
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Firefighters spray water toward flames at a wildfire near Belin-Beliet, southwestern France, overnight on August 11, 2022. More than 1,000 firefighters backed by water-bombing aircraft battled to contain the blaze in the southwestern Gironde region, forcing thousands of people from their homes and scorched 6,800 hectares of forest.
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Sky turning red as it is illuminated by flames at a wildfire near Belin-Beliet, southwestern France. "It's an ogre, it's a monster," Gregory Allione from the French firefighters told RTL radio.
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Volunteer farmers help to fight against flames at a wildfire near Belin-Beliet, southwestern France. Wildfires have broken out across Europe this summer as successive heatwaves bake the continent, bring record temperatures and renew focus on climate change risks to industry and livelihoods.
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In Spain firefighters were tackling blazes across six regions after lightning storms sparked new blazes. In Portugal emergency services struggled to beat back a forest fire that broke out six days ago.
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French Prime Minister Elisabeth visited the Gironde. Overnight the darkened skies had glowed orange above the burning forests, leaving local residents to face another anxiety-wracked night as the fire advanced.
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Firefighters said they had managed to save the village of Belin-Beliet, transformed into a ghost village after police told residents to evacuate as the flames approached.
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A view of a house destroyed by fire in Belin-Beliet, as wildfires continue to spread in the Gironde region of southwestern France.
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The head of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, said successive heatwaves, shrinking rivers and rising land temperatures as measured from space left no doubt about the toll on agriculture and other industries from climate change.
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"It's pretty bad. We have seen extremes that have not been observed before," Aschbacher told Reuters. ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite series has measured "extreme" land surface temperatures of more than 45C in Britain, 50C in France and 60C in Spain in recent weeks.
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More than 57,200 hectares have gone up in flames so far in France this year, nearly six times the full-year average for 2006-2021, data from the European Forest Fire Information System shows. French authorities said temperatures in the Gironde region would reach 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Thursday and stay high until Saturday. Firefighters warned of an "explosive cocktail" of weather conditions with wind and the tinder-box conditions helping fan the flames.
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