French firefighters are battling the flames

Fire

French firefighters are battling the flames.

Fires continue to rage across Europe, prompting thousands of people to evacuate and claiming the life of a firefighting plane pilot.

Strong winds and hot, dry weather have hampered efforts to put out a huge blaze in pine forests in Bordeaux, while fires have also burned in Portugal, Spain, Greece, Hungary and Croatia.

It said around 3,000 firefighters supported by water jets battled the blaze in southern France as they sought to save as many homes as possible.

The fire season has hit parts of Europe earlier than usual this year after an unusually dry and hot spring caused the soil to dry out – something authorities attribute to climate change.

In Portugal, more than 1,000 firefighters worked alongside ordinary citizens to save their homes on Saturday after a week-long battle with multiple blazes across the country.

The fires have been fueled by earlier-than-usual extreme temperatures and drought conditions.

As a result, a pilot of a firefighting plane died on Friday when his plane crashed during an operation in the northeast of the country, the first fire fatality in Portugal this year.

Across the border, firefighters in Spain struggled to contain several fires, including two that burned about 7,400 hectares of land.

About 3,000 people were forced to evacuate villages in southern Andalusia after a fire spread nearby.

Also, for the sixth day, firefighters were also trying to bring under control a fire caused by a lightning strike in the central west area of ​​Las Hurdes.