Fire in Greece and Canada, ovens in Italy, Spain or the United States, records broken in France: the northern hemisphere is suffocating and burning under the heat waves, which strengthened on Tuesday July 18 and concern also China and Japan. The UN on Tuesday called on the world to prepare for “more intense heat waves”, urging everyone to prepare their own “combat plans” to face these extreme temperatures day and night.

The heat wave will persist near the Mediterranean on Wednesday, with nine departments in the South-East placed on orange alert by Météo-France: Gard, Hérault, Bouches-du-Rhône, Haute-Corse and Corse-du -South, the Alpes-Maritimes, the Var, the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and the Vaucluse. Météo-France has lowered vigilance for the Pyrénées-Orientales and Andorra. At 5 a.m., the temperatures recorded were 26°C in Montpellier and Béziers, 25°C in Marseille and Nice, 24°C in Arles.

“The temperatures we are experiencing at the moment are not normal temperatures”, but “the proof of this climate disruption which unfortunately is accelerating”, reaffirmed the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, on RMC on Tuesday.

Maximum temperatures will once again be scorching in Hérault, Alpes-Maritimes and Corsica, with 36 to 40°C. 35 to 36°C will sometimes be reached in the Pyrénées-Orientales, as well as in the south of Drôme and Ardèche. Elsewhere, temperatures will drop, such as in the Southwest with 24 to 29°C.

Wednesday morning, a cloudy degradation will arrive from the North-West, and will be accompanied by a few drops towards the Channel coasts. Night temperatures will vary from 13 to 18°C ??on the northern half, from 16 to 24°C on the southern half, it will be 25°C, or even more in Nice and Corsica.

Many records were broken on Tuesday in the south of the country, mainly at altitude in the Alps, the Pyrenees and Corsica, the meteorological services announced. These records are 8°C to 11.9°C above seasonal norms.

In Greece, firefighters had a second “difficult day” in battling several wildfires despite an improvement in threatened seaside areas near Athens. No less than 47 fires have broken out since Monday evening, according to firefighters. Two of them, west of Athens, were still not under control at the end of the day on Tuesday. A new heat wave, with highs of 44°C, is already expected from Thursday.

On the island of Rhodes (southeast), in the Dodecanese archipelago, a forest fire, which broke out on Tuesday afternoon, has spread and is progressing towards the center of the island, “without threaten residential areas for now,” the fire department spokesperson said.

Twenty cities in Italy are on red alert, from Bolzano at the foot of the Alps to Palermo in Sicily, but also Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples and Cagliari, a city in Sardinia which recorded 39°C. In Rome, the mercury reached 40°C, just below the local record of 40.5°C dating from August 2007. Early Tuesday afternoon, the highest temperature recorded in Italy – which holds the heat record for continental Europe with 48.8°C in Sicily on August 11, 2021 – was 44°C in Ragusa, in the same region.

The south and north-east of Spain are also crushed by the heat. Several regions have been placed on red alert due to the “extreme danger” induced by these temperatures, while firefighters continue to fight a fire that has ravaged 3,500 hectares in the Canary archipelago. According to the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet), temperatures reached 45.3°C in Figueres, Catalonia (Northeast), and 43.7°C in the Balearic Islands.

Switzerland is also hit by these exceptional conditions, with a major forest fire in the south, declared Monday in a forest above the village of Bitsch, which forced around 200 villagers to temporarily evacuate.

In the United States, weather services observe an “oppressive” heat wave in the South. Several very violent fires in California led to the evacuation of the population. The largest, Rabbit Fire, burned 3,200 hectares. In Arizona’s capital, Phoenix, the mercury hit 43°C again, breaking the previous record of 18 straight days at that temperature or higher set in 1974.

More than ten million hectares have already gone up in smoke this year in Canada, with 882 fires still active on Monday, including 579 considered out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC). Two firefighters died fighting these megafires.

Japan has issued heatstroke alerts for 32 of its 47 prefectures, which are experiencing temperatures close to the all-time high of 41.1°C reached in 2018. The country is also facing torrential rains that killed at least eight people.

Finally, China broke a record in mid-July on Sunday, with 52.2 ° C in the arid region of Xinjiang (west). Beijing on Tuesday broke a 23-year-old record with 27 straight days of temperatures above 35°C, forecasters said.