The heat gained further ground on Wednesday in France, putting pressure on the population and firefighters who are struggling with numerous earlier and more devastating fires than last year.
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Around 7,800 hectares burned in France during the first eight days of July, compared to just over 4,400 over the entire same month in 2025, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis) analyzed by AFP.
The strengthening wind complicated the work of the firefighters.
A young 22-year-old volunteer firefighter died on Wednesday in the French Alps, while fighting a forest fire in an area with a steep slope.
AFP
The intense heat, with 67 French departments on orange alert, is gaining ground towards the north and east, and on Thursday, five additional departments will move to heatwave orange, indicates the Météo-France organization, which predicts that this “severe and lasting heatwave episode” will continue “very probably until next weekend inclusive”.
On Wednesday afternoon, temperatures frequently reached 38 to 41°C, in part of the south-east of the country, going up the Rhône valley.
AFP
Records for the month of July were notably measured at Montpellier airport (40.7°C) and the city of Perpignan (40.7°C).
In Avignon, the first week of the international theater festival ends in extreme heat. “We are banking on shows in an air-conditioned room,” explains Marie Garnier, a 41-year-old festival-goer who “hesitates about going to see a Molière play at the end of the day that is performed outside, in a courtyard…”
AFP
This episode of intense heat is the third in less than two months after the remarkably early one at the end of May, followed by a heat wave during the second half of June. A sign of global warming, more than half of the 53 heat waves recorded since 1947 occurred after 2010.
Once again, the national railway company SNCF canceled train departures on Wednesday, the heat particularly affecting the catenaries which supply the trains with electricity.
Particularly exposed during heatwaves, home meal delivery drivers will no longer work during the hottest hours in the departments which will be placed on red alert (the most critical level), the companies Uber Eats and Deliveroo announced to AFP on Wednesday, responding to a request from the sector.
