Deadly Wildfires Sweep Croatia as Blazes Spread Across Europe

A fast-moving wildfire swept through homes overnight in a scenic Croatian resort area, leaving one person dead, injuring 40 others and forcing around 1,200 people to flee, as European Union monitors warned that “very extreme” fire danger was emerging in several parts of the continent.

Elsewhere in Europe, hundreds of people were also moved to safety from a beach resort in northern Greece and from a village in southwest France.

A summer of record heat and prolonged drought, conditions scientists say are being intensified by climate change, has left large areas of Europe highly vulnerable to wildfires, with France, Spain and Greece among the hardest hit. The Balkans, too, has faced repeated heatwaves in recent weeks.

Residents and holidaymakers described panic and confusion as they escaped by car from the blaze near Omis, a popular town on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast known for its dramatic rocky hills, dense greenery and seaside views.

“The flames were licking both sides of the road. When I got a little further around the bend and looked, I saw flames shooting up from under my hood. The car was on fire!” said local resident Ljubica Uglesic.

The blaze, which painted the night sky red, seemed to have eased by Friday morning, according to Croatia’s Chief Fire Commander Slavko Tucakovic.

Authorities said a charred body was discovered in the affected area. Of the 40 people taken for treatment at a nearby hospital in Split, seven were listed in serious condition, the hospital reported.

In northern Greece, residents and visitors in the seaside town of Siviri, many wearing face masks and some carrying children or pets, climbed into dinghies and boats as flames consumed nearby forest and thick smoke turned the clear sky a heavy grey.

The coastguard said that more than 300 people had been evacuated by boat from the town, which sits on a peninsula of woodland, olive groves and beaches south of Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki.

More than 140 firefighters, nine aircraft and seven helicopters were deployed to battle flames, while fishing vessels took part in the evacuation.

In France, authorities evacuated 525 people from the village of Luglon after a wildfire broke out in the southwestern Landes region, not far from an area already devastated by major blazes this summer. 

It is one of several fires scorching forests around France this week, including in normally cooler and wetter regions in the north and Brittany. 

A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux last month and pushed a quarter of a million people from their homes.

France also has shut down six nuclear reactors in recent days because of extreme heat and drought — and because a mass of jellyfish washed up outside one power plant on the English Channel coast, utility company EDF said. 

Large numbers of jellyfish are appearing on many French beaches in connection with unusually warm sea temperatures.

In a statement, the company said the shutdowns had minimal impact on France’s electricity production. It said extreme weather poses no safety risks to the reactors themselves.

Rescue services in Spain late on Thursday launched an operation to remove the remains of three kings who ruled the Aragón region in the 11th ​century from a monastery threatened by a wildfire. 

The remains were taken to a museum about 50 miles south of the 10th-century San Juan de la Peña monastery, which remained unharmed as of Friday. 

Paintings, liturgical objects and the clothes of a notable 18th-century Spanish count were among the other items removed from the monastery.

An even larger fire in Huelva, in southern Spain, has burned 31,000 hectares so far and forced the evacuation of 700 people.

Firefighting planes in Spain have clocked more than 8,200 hours flying time so far this year, exceeding the number of hours flown in 2025, when a record 393,000 hectares of land burned.  

All 1,800 residents of the village of Gey in western Germany were evacuated after a wildfire with shifting winds in the nearby Hürtgen forest threatened to reach their homes. Nearly 300 hectares (1.16 square miles) of forest were ablaze on Friday morning, local authorities said.

Unexploded ordnance from World War II in the forest hampered firefighting efforts. 

The fire advanced to within 1,000 feet of Gey, which sits on the edge of the forest near the Belgian border. The cause of the blaze remains unknown.

Germany has set a new record for heat-related deaths so far this year, surpassing the 2018 level for the entire year. An estimated 12,500 people died from heat-related causes between January 1 and August 2. 

Belgium was expecting to hit its highest temperature of the summer on Friday, climbing to 37C in the capital, Brussels.

The mercury was also set to hit 37C in the neighbouring Netherlands. The country is suffering from severe drought, with water shortages in some areas, but Dutch authorities have held off declaring a water crisis as rain is expected in the coming days. 

Albania has been battling dozens of wildfires in recent weeks, with 11 active fires reported across the country on Friday.

The largest fire is in the Gure-Lure area, where the perimeter near residential homes has been brought under control.

Three people have been prosecuted over that fire, which engulfed Lura National Park. They are suspected of failing to take the necessary measures to protect and safeguard the territory under their responsibility from fire, authorities said. 

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warned of ‘very extreme’ conditions across a large area of central and eastern Europe, with additional pockets over southern Britain, Ireland, northern France and southern Sweden, in its outlook for the week to August 19.

The average high across Western Europe on Friday was forecast to be 31.2C, which is 8C above what was typical from 1961 to 1990, data from the Reuters Climate Monitor showed. 

The temperature for Europe as a whole was 1.6C above the 1961-1990 average, it said.

The hot, dry summer is also taking a heavy toll on agriculture. 

Relentless heat and drought could halve this year’s French maize harvest and reduce European Union production to its smallest in decades, according to analysts.