Last weekend a sudden wildfire near Perpignan in the French Pyrenees burned through 500 hectares of land, destroying a campsite and causing 2,000 people to be evacuated before finally being brought under control. According to a government minister, a combination of intense heat, dryness and very high winds added to the speed and impact of the fire, which, fortunately, did not kill anyone.
It was a smaller-scale and far less devastating version of the disastrous fire that destroyed the historic town and tourist centre of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui a few days earlier. There the death toll is over 111 and rising, with many still unaccounted for. The direct cause is not known but may have been trees brought down over power lines in near-hurricane-force winds. Contributing factors were heat, the tinder-dryness of invasive grasses that had replaced sugarcane cultivation in the area and the failure of fire hydrant water supplies at a crucial stage.
The Lahaina disaster is the latest impact of climate breakdown to affect a rich country, following the fires in early summer in Greece. The loss of life was actually much higher in the scarcely reported disaster across the Mediterranean in Algeria, where recent fires have killed at least 34 people, injured hundreds and displaced thousands.
