The record-breaking, scorching, dry summer continued to batter Europe on Monday. While the fires raging for four years near Athens, in Greece, are still threatening, French firefighters were trying to control the fire in the Var. For their part, England and Wales announced that they had experienced the driest month of July on record. France 24 takes stock of the situation.
Published on: 08/03/2026 - 10:13 p.m. Modified on: 08/03/2026 - 10:15 p.m.
While the fires in France seemed to calm down on Monday August 3, with the many people evacuated in Gironde continuing to return to their homes, it is now in Greece that the fire is raging, threatening for four days near Athens. At the same time, England and Wales announced they had the driest July on record.
• In the Var and Gironde, the fight against fire outbreaks
Firefighters continue to battle to contain outbreaks of fire in Var and Gironde, as well as near Carcassonne, in Aude, where a fire that broke out in the afternoon is now “fixed”.
In Gironde, a sign of the clear improvement on the ground, the victims of Porge - the municipality most affected by the megafire, were able to return to this ghost village on Monday. 183 houses out of 240 burned there.
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In the Var, the fire, which started on Friday, is contained but is still not fixed at this stage. Firefighters are therefore exercising "extreme vigilance" to tame "limited" resumptions and reactivations of the fire, which could further be fanned by gusts of wind in the coming days. The flames have already covered around 1,850 hectares and threatened several villages. But the residents, evacuated for part of the weekend, were able to return to their homes.
A sign of a "stabilization" of the situation, on Monday "no population" found itself confined or evacuated, said Var prefect Simon Babre during an evening press briefing.
• In Greece, new evacuations near Athens
The fires raging for four days near Athens were still threatening on Monday despite the drop in wind gusts, with a resumption of the fire and new evacuations.
If the firefighters spoke of a slight improvement in the situation on Monday morning, the mayor of the town of Megara - around thirty kilometers west of the capital and one of the main fronts of these fires (mainly forests) - reported a "resumption of fire which occurred in the afternoon".
“While the wind has decreased in the region, in Kandyli there are still gusts and currents which are created from the hot air which rises upwards and we are observing a resumption of the fire,” Panagiotis Margetis told AFP.
“The fire is constantly changing direction” and it is getting closer to the “industrial zone” of Megara, which is very dangerous,” he added, on the public channel Ertnews.
New evacuations were ordered on Monday during the day in this area: “If you are in the localities of Louba, Morfeika and Ano Alepochori, in Western Attica, evacuate in the direction of Megara,” announced the authorities.
• Unprecedented drought in England and Wales since 1836
Beyond the fires, in England and Wales, an unprecedented drought is hitting the territory. The two countries experienced the driest July on record this year, due to heat waves and almost non-existent precipitation, according to provisional data from the British Meteorological Agency published on Monday.
July 2026 was the driest since records began in 1836, which also constituted for England and Wales "the sunniest month in their history", the Met Office said in a press release.
“The combination of record drought, exceptional heat and unprecedented sunshine resulted in one of the most memorable summer months in our historical records,” according to Amy Doherty, chief scientist at the Met Office, quoted in the press release.
In total, 6.5 millimeters of rain fell in England in July, just 10% of the seasonal average, and 9.3 millimeters in Wales, 9% of normal.
In the south of England, July was also the driest on record for any month since 1836, with just 1.9mm of precipitation, just 3% of the average.
Les conséquences de ces fortes chaleurs se font notamment sentir dans l'agriculture. "La moisson est terminée alors que nous ne sommes qu'au début du mois d'août", une situation "impensable il y a encore une décennie", a déclaré mardi Tom Bradshaw, président de la National Farmers' Union (NFU), principal syndicat des agriculteurs britanniques, à la chaîne Sky News.
He noted that some yields were a third lower than normal, but considered it premature to draw conclusions in terms of world prices.
With AFP
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