Infernos devastate forests as Europe's temperatures rise again

Hundreds of firefighters across southern Europe on Sunday battled wildfires that sent residents fleeing their homes in the middle of the night and threatened to disrupt a stage of the Tour de France cycling race, as temperatures rose again in the heatwave-scarred region.



The infernos have devastated more than 42,000 acres of land - an area more than twice the size of Manhattan - across Portugal, Spain, France and Greece, with temperatures predicted to reach 40C in places.



"We started seeing smoke around 10:30 pm, then it kept coming closer and closer.



Someone from the town hall knocked on our door around 1:00 am to tell us to leave," said Charlotte Pignol, 30, who was evacuated from her home in southern France near the city of Perpignan.



The blazes come shortly after a heatwave in June, one of Europe's worst, during which thousands of excess deaths were registered and which would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.



With the mercury set to rise again in the coming days, authorities expressed alarm that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.