The watchword today: it's hot.
The heat wave moved towards the east of France on Tuesday, after having dropped more than 60 absolute heat records and leaving in its wake devastating fires, even in regions usually spared by these impacts of global warming.
“On Wednesday, the high temperatures will only concern the south-eastern quarter of the country with night temperatures still remaining very high”, according to the latest report from Météo-France, for which “this situation is likely to continue for several more days in these regions. ".
Europe is suffocating
In the meantime, new absolute heat records were recorded on Tuesday along the northwestern coasts, such as in Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), whose station, opened in 1949, recorded 40.4 ° C, against a previous record of 40.1°C on July 25, 2019. Other absolute records in Pas-de-Calais, with 39.6°C in Boulogne-sur-Mer (37.9°C on July 31, 2020).
While all of Western Europe is suffocating under the extreme heat, the United Kingdom exceeding 40°C for the first time in its history, Météo-France lifted the red heat wave vigilance early on Tuesday on the 15 departments of the Atlantic coast where the maximum alert was in effect.
58 departments on orange alert
At the end of the afternoon, 58 departments remained in orange vigilance and 11 in yellow vigilance, over a large eastern half of the country, with rising temperatures, between 37 and 40 ° C in the East and locally violent thunderstorms expected in several regions.
It is the Southwest that has suffered the worst consequences, with two gigantic fires in Gironde which have burned more than 19,000 hectares of forest since July 12.
Pushed by the wind, the smoke rose to Paris, affecting air quality, the Airparif air quality observatory told AFP on Tuesday evening.
Nearly 1,700 firefighters from all over France, supported by significant air resources, are mobilized against the two fires which burned 7,000 hectares of forest in La Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon, and 13,300 in Landiras, in 50 km to the east, where a man was taken into custody, the investigation heading towards "a deliberately malicious act".
In seven days, these two fires forced the evacuation of 37,000 people.
The country on alert
The fires have reached unaccustomed regions, such as Brittany.
Nearly 1,700 hectares of vegetation went up in smoke in the Monts d'Arrée (Finistère) where 500 people were evacuated, a few hours after the historic heat records recorded in all the Breton departments.
In the Somme, in heat wave orange vigilance where temperatures reached 41 degrees, 150 inhabitants were evacuated when a stubble fire reached 12 houses which were saved in extremis.
The world-renowned Burgundy vineyard has also experienced scares.
About ten hectares of pines burned above the vines of Vosne-Romanée and Nuits-Saint-Georges.
The whole country is on alert.
Forest massifs closed in the Bouches-du-Rhône, as are the forest roads in Ile-de-France, Normandy and Hauts-de-France where more than 250 hectares have burned since June 20 in the only Oise department.
"Climate change amplifies the parameters favorable to fires: drought, wind, high temperatures weaken the forests which suffer", underlined on France Inter Françoise Alriq, deputy director of the federation of forest municipalities of France.
“What is significant is the amplitude”
The figures speak for themselves: according to Météo-France, we are in the 45th heat wave in metropolitan France since 1947 and their rhythm is accelerating.
Over the last 35 years, they have been three times more numerous than over the previous 35 years.
Since 2010, only 2014 has been spared and the current wave is already the second this year, after the very early and intense episode of June.
The average maximum temperature on Monday in France (at 30 reference stations throughout the territory) was the second highest ever recorded, with 37.6°C on August 5, 2003, which had peaked at 37.7°C, at the heart of a historic and deadly heat wave.
The thermometer rose to 42.6°C in the Landes, in Biscarrosse.
A total of 64 absolute heat records fell, mainly along the Atlantic coast, as far as Seine-Maritime where 38.2°C were reached at Cap de la Hève, north of Le Havre.
"It was unfortunately something expected," said Matthieu Sorel, climatologist at Météo-France.
But for the specialist, even more than the number, “what is significant is the amplitude” between old and new records.
"Plus four degrees in Brest, it's colossal".
At the tip of Brittany the mercury has indeed soared, from 35.1°C in August 2003 to 39.3°C on Monday.
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