Florence and Europe in the Grip of Extreme Heat
By July 30, 2026, Florence had racked up roughly 20 red-alert days (level-3 warnings) issued by the Italian Ministry of Health, spread across the June and July heat waves, with temperatures often between 37 and 39°C (99–102°F). If nothing else, this brutal heat has made Europe feel truly united this summer.
Back in 2014, French television aired a fake weather forecast for an imaginary June 21, 2050. The anchor stood in front of a map of the country and its temperature bulletin: Paris 40°, Marseille 44°, Lyon 43°, and so on. The point was to make viewers picture the French summer that climate change had in store.
The trouble is, those projections for 2050 turned out to be wrong as early as June 2022 — just eight years after that mock forecast — when all of France brushed up against those very temperatures during a record heat wave. And with 41°C in Paris at the end of June 2026, reality has now played out worse than the dystopian future they imagined.
Southern Europe and the Mediterranean under threat from “mega-fires.”
“London’s Burning” by The Clash — a song about the social tensions of 1970s London — feels newly relevant amid the record temperatures across southern England.
Across the south of the continent, the extreme heat comes hand in hand with fire. This summer, once again, it’s the Mediterranean Burning, and Italy has been anything but spared — from Puglia to Molise.
In the “mare nostrum,” with temperatures running 20% above average — and every summer hotter than the last — it’s the climate itself that lights the fuse.
In France, the evacuations in the Bordeaux region were dramatic, as the fire front advanced and made the firefighters’ job almost impossible. The Atlantic coast — where the region logged record temperatures — had to face giant blazes that devoured 42,000 hectares (about 104,000 acres) of vegetation.
The same scene unfolded in Spain, around Madrid and Valencia. These are “mega-fires,” unmanageable with the old techniques: firebreaks are useless, and the sheer scale of the heat they release and the length of their flame fronts make them go out of control fast. The area they burn is, inevitably, just as extraordinary.
We lose biodiversity and the capacity to capture CO₂ — which, on the contrary, builds up in the atmosphere as a direct result. In the hottest week of this hottest-ever July, it’s time to take climate change seriously. Italy, with its vast forest heritage under water stress, is full of bombs ready to go off.
Cover and photos via DepositPhotos
