UK Hits 38.1C as Europe Heatwave Sparks Greek Wildfires
SkimNews Take
Europe's fifth heatwave in one summer and France's 17th consecutive extreme-heat day show heat extremes now cluster as sustained events, and their co-occurrence with gale-force winds in the same weather system amplifies wildfire risk beyond what either hazard alone would produce.
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- Met Office recorded a provisional 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on Thursday — the UK's hottest day of 2026, the fifth hottest day on record, and only the second time the country has reached 38C twice in a single year (the previous occurrence was 2022).
- France's heatwave stretched to a 17th consecutive day, marking the country's third-longest period of extreme temperatures ever recorded, with temperatures exceeding 40C elsewhere on the continent.
- Greek firefighters evacuated more than 250 tourists and locals from the resort village of Siviri on the Kassandra peninsula of Chalkidiki using 15 boats as gale-force winds exceeding 100 km/h drove a massive wildfire through nearby forest; one firefighter was injured and 140+ firefighters, nine aircraft and seven helicopters were deployed.
- West Midlands fire service deployed about 60 firefighters to a large grassfire near a golf course in Stourbridge, England, where several homes caught fire; Stourbridge town hall was opened as a rest centre and the service urged the public to avoid the area.
- A former chief scientific adviser to the UK government warned that this summer's "shattering" heat was only a sign of things to come and called for climate adaptation policies to be accelerated.
- England's Met Office-issued amber extreme-heat warning was expanded to cover more of the country including parts of the northwest, with 40 locations across central and southern England recording 36C or higher and London overnight temperatures staying above 20C — officially a "tropical night."
- More than 135 million Europeans were expected to experience temperatures of 35C or above on Thursday, according to the live blog's tally.
Why it matters: A former UK chief scientific adviser publicly calling the heat 'shattering' and a preview of worse to come — alongside the UK logging its fifth heatwave of summer 2026 and 135 million Europeans sitting in 35C-plus air — puts direct pressure on the UK government to accelerate climate adaptation policy beyond the current emergency-response footing.
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