WILDFIRES HAVE CONTINUED to burn across a number of European countries today, including France, Spain, Turkey and Greece, where three firefighters have died.

Two firefighters died while battling a forest fire on the Greek island of Crete, while another was found unconscious near the Peloponnese port of Gytheio, a fire department spokesman said. Local media has reported he died. 

State TV ERT said the two men on Crete had been trapped by the flames in their fire engine in the foothills of a mountain near the western city of Rethymno.

“Two firefighters fell in the line of duty,” deputy fire department spokesman Yiannis Artopios told AFP.

Local municipal official Sifis Vavourakis told ERT the fire front near Rethymno was over 15 kilometres long and “out of control”.

Over 150 firefighters and eight aircraft had been dispatched, the fire department said.

The devastating Sierra Oeste wildfire has scorched around 34,000 hectares in the Community of Madrid Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

But the winds have complicated efforts to fight the fire from the air, local mayor Yiannis Tatarakis told ERT, adding that six villages had been evacuated.

“The wind keeps changing direction, it’s very easy to get trapped,” said Tatarakis, mayor of the village of Agios Vasileios.

With winds of up to 74 kilometres per hour, other fires were raging on the islands of Paros and Lesbos, and Messinia and Laconia in the Peloponnese peninsula.

The burnt body of a deer in Casavieja, Avila province, Spain Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

France braces for heatwave

France, where hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated, is expecting yet another heatwave that is threatening to intensify the fires already burning. 

Firefighters have continued to battle a wildfire in south-west France which covers an area four times the size of Paris as temperatures were forecast to reach 40C.

Authorities in the Gironde region said the blaze had not spread further during a calm night but warned that forecast heat and winds could cause the flames to surge again.

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in Blagon, southwestern France

The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations.

More than 2,200 firefighters and more than 20 aircraft remain mobilised, supported by crews from across France and other European countries.

Paulino Dominguez, 62, checks his blacksmith workshop, burned by a wildfire, in Piedralaves, Avila province, Spain Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

People return to homes in Spain

Thousands of people who fled huge wildfires in Spain returned home today after the government lifted remaining evacuation orders for Avila province, a day after doing so for several areas in the nearby Madrid region.

While some evacuees returned to untouched homes, others found only devastation.

“I’m happy. I couldn’t wait to come home and have my coffee and breakfast,” said Maria Jesus Perez Blanca, in her 70s. She was one of about a dozen returnees at the cafés of Aldea del Fresno, west of Madrid on Wednesday morning.

But 12 kilometres away in Pelayos de la Presa, David Rodriguez was knocking down the scorched remains of his home.

“It’s a disaster. Just look at it,” he said. “All my memories, everything I had was here. My dad built it 40 years ago and everything has been lost.”

Officials said that better overnight conditions had helped crews stabilise the fire area, and prime minister Pedro Sanchez said the coming hours would be “decisive” in the battle to extinguish all the remaining flames.

A helicopter scoops water from a swimming pool to drop on a wildfire that continues to spread near Casillas, Avila province, Spain Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Turkish tourist beaches

In the south of Turkey, hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated and firefighters are attempting to control blazes in areas popular with tourists.

Hundreds of firefighters went up against the biggest fire in Mugla province today, with more than 20 planes and helicopters bombing water on the flames, the agriculture ministry said.

Media reports said the main motorway from the tourist city of Antalya to the beach resort of Fethiye had been closed because of the smoke.

NTV television said that access to the ancient ruins at Olympos in Antalya province had been closed.

Firefighters take a break after battling fires near La Haouteyre, during wildfires in southwestern France Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

In Mugla province, the wildfire started on agricultural land and spread to a forest, the provincial governor’s office said. It added that 202 residents and some patients from a hospital had been evacuated.

Another major fire burned in the Balıkesir region on the Aegean coast along the road connecting Izmir, the country’s third-largest city, to the Dardanelles region.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that around 90 fires had broken out on Wednesday in the country, with 81 brought under control.

More than 3,000 firefighters are working to contain the remaining fires, he said.

Turkey has sent two firefighting planes to Spain to help with its wildfires and two others to France.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association