Europe faces danger as record-breaking heat continues

In the U.K. and across Europe, record-breaking temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit are posing a serious risk to health and safety. On top of the sweltering conditions, numerous fires have broken out in Spain, France, Portugal as well as London.

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PENELOPE ENDERSBY: This weather is absolutely unprecedented. We have never seen anything like these temperatures in our models before.

- This is in a Wellington in greater London residential area ablaze there. London Fire Brigade say they have 15 engines and 100 firefighters tackling this blaze.

SADIQ KHAN: This year, for the first time, we've issued a severe weather emergency response in summer. Normally, we do this in winter when it gets really cold.

- The UK is not set up to withstand extreme heat. Many homes and businesses don't have air conditioning.

ISABEL OLIVER: Although some people are most vulnerable, particularly those in older age groups, those with heart and lung conditions, these temperatures are so unusually high that everybody can be affected.

ANDY CURRAN: We've just had eight ambulances arrive at the moment. All those crews have been off ordered to go back out.

PAUL DAVIES: I've been a meteorologist for about 30 years, and I've never seen the charts that I've seen today. And the speed at which we are seeing these exceptionally high temperatures is quite astounding. And it does worry me a lot, and my colleagues here in the met office, that this sort of unprecedented heat could be a regular occurrence by the end of the century.

- Europe is also scorching. In France, meteorologists in the Western part of the country calling it a heat apocalypse.

EMMANUEL MACRON: [SPEAKING FRENCH]

INTERPRETER: We already have three times more forest burned than in 2020, and we have both a spring that has been very dry and fires that have spread with force.

JANEZ LENARCIC: It all looks like this is the result of the climate change, because the trends are unmistakable. We have an increased frequency and intensity of forest fires if we look over the average over the years.

- If I may say so, these commitments around net zero have never been more vitally important, as we all swelter under today's alarming record temperatures across Britain and Europe. And as I've tried to indicate for quite some time, the climate crisis really is a genuine emergency, and tackling it is utterly essential.