Europe's 40-Degree Heatwave Turns Deadly as Fires Burn Homes in England and Croatia

One person is dead. Around 40 more are hurt, at least seven of them seriously and fighting for their lives. That is the toll from a single overnight wildfire on Croatia's Dalmatian coast, the sharpest human cost yet in a week when record heat past 40 degrees Celsius set fire to the edges of England, France and the eastern Adriatic at the same time. ³²

Twelve hundred people were moved out of the path of that Croatian fire alone, driven from homes, resort apartments, cars and boats as wind pushed flames from pine forest into streets where people live and holiday. ^2351011 It is a scale of evacuation more often associated with the high Mediterranean summer, now matched in the same 48 hours by burnt-out streets in the English Midlands and by firefighters stretched across France during its fifth heatwave of the summer. ⁹²⁸

In England the fire that matters most burned at Stourbridge in the West Midlands, near Birmingham, on Thursday and into Friday, August 14. ⁴⁹ It moved rapidly through grass and woodland in extreme heat and then into housing, destroying 19 homes and damaging a further 18. ⁹ Photographs and wire descriptions from August 14 show burnt houses and a fire front that reached a golf course, an unusually urban footprint for an English wildfire. ⁴

The response showed how seriously the authorities took it. A national government alert warned people not to light anything that could spark a wildfire, a rare country-wide message for England in summer. ⁹ What the alert did not do is answer the most urgent local questions. No provided source confirms injuries in the United Kingdom, including the claim of four injured near Birmingham, among them a child, that circulated alongside early video of the blaze. ⁹⁴ The number of homes hit is firm, the number of people hurt is not.

The Croatian fire broke out Thursday evening near the village of Lokva Rogoznica and, driven overnight by strong winds, spread toward Omiš, engulfing homes along the way. ³¹⁰ Croatia's state broadcaster HRT put the start at roughly 8 p.m. Thursday and said the wind-carried fire consumed houses, cars and boats and roughly 1,000 hectares of agricultural land and pine forest. ⁷ The BBC reported one person killed and around 40 injured, while The Associated Press reported at least seven seriously injured and in life-threatening condition. ³²

The evacuation figure has been consistent across outlets at about 1,200 people moved from the Omiš area, with resort evacuations in Croatia reported alongside evacuations from Greek resorts as fires stretched across southern Europe. ^2351011 For Croatia, the early shorthand of hundreds fleeing and a handful hurt understated what happened by an order of magnitude. ³² One death is confirmed, dozens were treated, and a small number remain in danger.

In France, firefighters across the country struggled against multiple fires on Friday as a new wave of record heat gripped the continent. ²⁸ France was at the peak of its fifth heatwave of the summer, according to AP reporting carried across U.S. outlets, a marker of a long, cumulative drying season rather than a single hot day. ²⁸

What cannot yet be pinned down from the provided reporting is how much burned near Bordeaux or how many people were ordered out in southern France. ²⁸ The figure of about 600 hectares burned in the Bordeaux area, widely repeated in early accounts, is not confirmed in the sources supplied for this story, nor are French evacuation totals. ²⁸ Separately, The Guardian reported that almost 500 people were arrested in France on suspicion of arson as wildfires raged, a striking law-enforcement response running alongside the firefighting effort. ⁶ The same Guardian account listed Germany, Greece and Spain as additionally affected, but it did not mention Montenegro. ⁶

Two parts of the early story remain thin. Reporting from CNA and MarketScreener, citing Reuters material, says hundreds were evacuated from resorts in Croatia and Greece as wildfires stretched across Europe. ⁵¹¹ That confirms that Greek resort evacuations occurred, but no provided source details a specific Greek sea evacuation by wall of fire, nor a location, casualty count or operation in Greece. ⁵¹¹

Montenegro is a clearer gap. No provided source mentions fires in Montenegro. ⁶ Early accounts described rapid spread on strong winds there, but without corroboration that part of the map cannot be treated as confirmed, especially when other European outlets were naming Germany, Greece and Spain as the additional fronts beyond France, England and Croatia. ⁶

The broader climate framing also needs care. AP frames the fires as occurring during a record-breaking heatwave, with France in an exceptional run of summer heat. ²⁸ Attribution of that heat specifically to human-caused climate change, repeated in early video narration, is not explicitly stated in the provided source excerpts.