Three firefighters have been killed in Greece while tackling wildfires that broke out as a punishing mix of heat, drought and wind fanned flames across southern Europe, according to local authorities and the national fire service. Two of the men died on the island of Crete after their vehicle was overtaken by flames near the village of Krya Vrysi, in the Rethymno region; a third died in a separate fire in the Peloponnese, near the port of Gythio. The fire department said the two Cretan victims “fell heroically in the line of duty”, while an evacuation of several coastal settlements, including the resort of Agia Galini, was ordered as the blaze advanced on a 15-kilometre front.

In parallel, emergency crews in southwestern France continued to battle an uncontained wildfire in the Gironde département that has already ravaged some 42,000 hectares of pine forest—an area roughly four times the size of Paris, according to the prefecture. More than 220,000 residents and holidaymakers have been ordered to leave their homes since the fire began on 22 July, in what French officials have called one of the largest peacetime evacuations in the country’s history. Fire commander Matthieu Jomain warned that conditions on Wednesday remained “extremely dangerous”, with temperatures forecast to reach 41°C and afternoon winds that risked reigniting smouldering hotspots.

In Spain, authorities said the colossal wildfire straddling the provinces of Ávila and Madrid had been “technically stabilised”, allowing some 24,000 evacuees to return home overnight. But Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska cautioned that strong winds and temperatures exceeding 40°C in six regions still posed a “very high” danger, and a fire in the eastern province of Castellón remained out of control after consuming more than 9,000 hectares. The EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre warned that Greece, Italy and parts of central Europe would face escalating wildfire risk in the coming weeks.

The death toll in Greece is still considered provisional by local authorities; the exact circumstances under which the two firefighters became trapped inside their vehicle are under investigation. Across the affected countries, thousands of firefighters, supported by water-bombing aircraft and military units, continued to work in extreme conditions, while meteorological agencies forecast that the fourth heatwave of the summer would persist through the weekend.