At least that’s what the Met Office said 34 observation sites in England had provisionally beaten the previous UK record high of 101.6F, which was set at Cambridge Botanic Gardens on 25 July 2019 late on Tuesday afternoon.
He said it before web site that the ongoing heat wave was the first time temperatures of 104 F were forecast.
The record heat marks “an exceptional historic day, really, for the UK,” Met Office meteorologist Craig Snell told NBC News in a telephone interview. “It will definitely go down in the record books.”
The rise in fires in and around the capital comes as once-green parks and lawns in parts of the UK now look more deserted after the ongoing heatwave left grass dry and yellow .
A “major grass fire” was raging in Dagenham, east London, affecting “a number of buildings and a workshop” on Tuesday evening, district commander Paul McClenaghan said in a statement. A woman and a man have been hospitalized for smoke inhalation in the year. the fire, the London Fire Brigade said.
Fifteen fire engines i about 100 firefighters intervened the flames on Ballards Road, as firefighters prepared spend the night there.
In Wennington, village in the east end of London, 15 fire engines and around 100 firefighters were dealing with a fire on The Green.
Firefighters were also tackling two simultaneous grass fires in Croydon in Oaks Road and Chapel View on Tuesday said the London Fire Brigade.
The brigade said it also had eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters tackling a blaze in Wembley, north-west London. “Our control room has received more than 40 fire calls,” he said, sharing a video of the scene, where there was heavy smoke over the businesses.
In New Eltham, an area of south-east London, a building that appeared to have a business on the ground floor and a residential space above could be seen burning in a video shared on Social media. It was not immediately clear if the fire was heat-related.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service also declared a major incident in relation to a farm fire which spread into woodland on Tuesday afternoon. Residents in the area were being evacuated Tuesday evening and 15 crews from across the county were working to put out the fire.
The London Fire Brigade urged the locals to avoid barbecuing on the lawn or balconies, do not leave broken bottles or glasses on the lawn as this can cause fires and dispose of cigarettes safely.
Earlier, the brigade said it had called for an “urgent ban on single-use barbecues in parks and public spaces as firefighters continue to feel the effects of unprecedented heatwaves for a second day”. He said he had already attended more than 1,000 grass fires since June.
The Met Office had said parts of the UK could experience temperatures of more than 104F on Tuesday when it issued a “red” extreme heat warning for much of central, north and south-east England.
He said parts of the country had “tentatively” overnight experienced the warmest night on record in Britain, as well as the “highest daily minimum temperature”.
“Temperatures did not fall below 25C (77F) in some places, surpassing the previous highest daily minimum record of 23.9C (75.02F), set in Brighton on 3 August 1990” , he said in one tweet.
The Met Office warned that Tuesday’s extreme heat could lead to “serious illness or danger to life”. Consequently, he has said that “substantial changes must be made in work practices and daily routines.”
On a Twitter statement On Tuesday afternoon, the London Ambulance Service said it was receiving 400 calls an hour, saying there was sustained demand on its emergency service lines as a result of the heatwave. He said he was seeing an increase in the number of patients suffering from heat exposure.
There was also a 14-year-old boy she is believed to have drowned in the River Thames in the London borough of Richmond after “getting into difficulties” in the water on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said.
“Despite the best efforts of all involved, we must now sadly conclude that this child has died,” Superintendent Richard Smith, of the South West Command Unit, said in a statement. “His death is a tragedy and I can’t begin to imagine what his family will be going through. All our thoughts are with them.”
“I know on days like today when temperatures are at a record high, it can seem tempting to jump in and cool off in rivers, reservoirs, lakes or other open water,” he said. “Please don’t. The dangers are real and tonight in Richmond we saw the terrible consequences of what happens when it goes wrong.”
The Met Office also warned of a “high risk of failure” of heat-sensitive systems and equipment, which could lead to localized loss of power and other essential services, including water or mobile phone services.
London’s busy Oxford Circus station was evacuated on Tuesday morning after reports of smoke coming from an escalator engine room. Firefighters said the smoke was caused by overheating brake pads on the escalators.
Network Rail, which runs most of Britain’s rail network, issued a “no travel warning” on Tuesday for services traveling through the “red zone”. Meanwhile, other train and rail services have been canceled or reduced due to the extreme heat warning.
The rail network also recorded its “hottest rail,” which reached 144F.
Meanwhile, Avanti West Coast stopped all train service for the rest of the day “due to extreme heat causing multiple network incidents.”
Although the UK has experienced warm weather before, scientists have said that such rising temperatures are becoming more common due to climate change driven by greenhouse gases that humans pump into the atmosphere.
Snell noted that this week’s hot weather comes after scientists for decades predicted an increase in heat waves and other extreme weather due to climate change.
“We can’t link everything directly to climate change, but what we can probably say is that this heat wave has probably been enhanced by climate change,” he said.
Politicians and government advisers have increasingly warned that UK homes and essential services must be adapted to prepare for rising temperatures in the coming years.
Swimmers at Moulleau beach in southwestern France watch as smoke rises from a forest fire in La Teste-de-Buch on Monday. Thibaud Moritz / AFP – Getty Images
“The planet is hotter than it’s been in 125,000 years. We’ve got 1 degree of warming so far, but I don’t want to be a jerk, but we’re going to have more than 1 degree of warming. That’s the average, and that’s going to mean more extreme heat … and we are not prepared as a country,” Ed Miliband, the UK’s shadow climate change secretary, told Sky News.
In the UK, the “shadow cabinet” is made up of members of the opposition who control the policies and practices of their respective ministers.
“We are not ready for this at all,” Miliband said. “Not even close”.
Met Office chief executive Penelope Endersby said ITV News that more needs to be done to upgrade the infrastructure for these conditions, including having more cooling centers.
“We need to make short-term changes for things like cooling centers and then long-term changes, as well as take the very good progress we’ve already made as a nation towards net zero,” Endersby said.
London has it fresh spaces, that is, indoor and outdoor areas where city dwellers can find respite from the heat. However, most indoor places to cool off are limited to libraries and community centers.
As the UK grapples with extreme heat and wildfires, neighboring south-west France’s Gironde region continued to see wildfires spread across 27,000 hectares, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. And in Portugal, where forest fires are also raging, more than 650 have died amid high temperatures.
In Spain, shocking video emerged this week of a man in the northwestern town of Tábara being forced to jump from a bulldozer after trying to dig a ditch to protect his town from a forest fire.
As the fire closed in and began to engulf the excavator, Angel Martín Arjona was forced to jump and run for his life, Reuters reported.
Chantal Da Silva reported from London and Marlene Lenthang from New York City.
