If we could look a little bit more closely also at the factors driving these fires, why have they been so intense?

So there's two things that have happened across Southern Europe.

The first is the same thing that's happening across the world also there in Canada, which is we're burning fossil fuels that heats the planet.

And as a result, the kind of hot, dry and this is in this year, very windy weather, becomes much more likely and much stronger.

That means that these fires, a kind of small blaze can turn into a medium sized one, which can turn into a big one, which can turn into a kind of huge entire town ravaging wildfire.

This has been the EU's most severe year on record so far for fire weather.

This kind of weather that makes it harder for firefighters to control the blazers.

And what are experts saying about how well prepared European countries were for this moment?

What lessons came out of that two thousand and three catastrophe, and what did it actually change?

When the two thousand and three heat wave hit, that was a bit of a turning point in Europe in terms of how at the institutional level people deal with heat.

So, uh, the World Health Organization created these heat health action plans.

There was some guidance over how authorities should respond.

And there's a lot of kind of jargony stuff involved here.

But at its core, what it boils down to is this idea that you need scientists and weather forecasters to tell you in advance it's gonna be really hot.

And then you need that meteorological agency to issue some sort of warning saying, "Hey, this is dangerous." And that needs to really automatically trigger responses from all sorts of different sectors of society, right? So that could be schools telling parents that, "Hey, we're actually gonna close early on these days so that kids aren't exposed to the hottest hours of the day." It could also mean that hospitals cancel some of the appointments that patients are gonna have that aren't urgent, so that they're better able to cope with the influx of patients they're gonna see when it does get too hot.

Have people started rethinking what a city looks like or what a city should look like?

[laughs] Yeah.

Um, that kind of Southern European lifestyle is coming further north with that.

Um, and third thing maybe worth mentioning is air conditioning across Europe is maybe prevalent at much lower levels than you would see in places like the United States or parts of, parts of East Asia.

Many countries have been quick, or many cities in particular, have been quicker at adopting this.

There's always a lot of debate about to what extent air conditioning should be used in tackling excess heat or providing relief from excess heat.

Scientists often will point out, yes, it is very draining in terms of energy.

Yes, if your, uh, e- electricity is coming from a fossil-based power grid, then yes, it produces emissions that do further heat the planet.

So I guess in terms of solutions or ways to cope with this, I mean, what we've been talking about is structural and long-term, but what are some of the shorter term options that we can be looking at to keep people safe?

What kinds of impacts do heatwaves like this have? Uh, let's start with health impacts.

So the thing about heatwaves is that they basically stress the body.

All your organs start to have to work harder.

Your heart's pumping blood faster.

Your body's struggling to deal with all the different processes that it kind of completes on a regular day-to-day basis.

And what happens is when you get this high level of heat, people often think about it as, "Oh gosh, that means that I'm gonna be out in the sun.

I'm not gonna have drunk enough water, and I might get knocked down by heatstroke." That is a risk, and particularly if you're homeless, if you're, uh, working a job that requires you being outdoors, then you are definitely at quite a high risk of stuff like that happening.

And what about on an individual level? What are the things we should be doing ourselves to cope better with a heatwave when it comes?