Europe's Summer of Wild, Wild Weather
Fires, Droughts and Floods Leave Wake of Destruction
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 2, 2007

PARIS, Aug. 1 -- Thousands of tourists and residents were forced to flee ahead of raging wildfires that have engulfed parts of the Canary Islands since the weekend, the latest in a string of bizarre, weather-related calamities to hit Europe this summer.

Local officials said that at least 13,000 people evacuated homes, hotels, campgrounds and other areas of the seven Canaries, Spanish territory in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of southern Morocco. More than 86,000 acres have been burned or otherwise affected by the fires since Friday, mostly on the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, according to a spokeswoman for the islands' government who was not allowed to be quoted by name.

The fires, which were "stable" but still not under control Wednesday, were stoked by winds in excess of 40 mph and temperatures over 104 degrees, the spokeswoman said. Residents of the islands, a popular European tourist destination, told the BBC that the thermometer in some spots had topped 120 degrees.

"These are the biggest fires on the archipelago in the last 10 years," Paulino Rivero, head of the regional government, told reporters. Because of the volcanic islands' rugged landscape, the fires had to be fought mostly from the air, he said, but high winds and temperatures had forced the grounding of many helicopters.

The Canary fires are the latest offspring of strange weather patterns that have buffeted Europe this summer, from unusually severe floods in England to chilly, fall-like weather in Paris, to searing heat waves, drought and wildfires in Southern and Eastern Europe. the rest photo