Forest fire in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece have forced thousands of people to leave their homes.

Two people have died in a forest fire in the north-western Zamora region of Spain, and train services have been disrupted due to a fire near the railway track. Wildfire have displaced more than 30,000 people.

The Gironde, a popular tourist region in the south-west of France, has been particularly badly affected by the fire. Firefighters across France are struggling to contain two blazes that have destroyed 19,300 hectares of land in the past week. The city of Bordeaux was shrouded in smoke on Tuesday morning after the wind changed direction. Hundreds of people left their homes in the far north-west of Brittany, and fire has destroyed 1,400 hectares of vegetation.

Several villages have been evacuated after a fire broke out in the Murca region of northern Portugal, while at least 20 fires have burned out of control in Spain.

Temperature hits record high
Meteorologists say the heat wave is heading north, with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius in the far south of Belgium as well as western and southwestern Germany. Western Europe faces further rising temperatures on Tuesday as heat moves northwards.

A record high of 39.1 degrees Celsius has been recorded in the UK and temperatures are expected to rise further.
On Monday, the Netherlands recorded its hottest day of the year at 33.6 degrees Celsius.

In Portugal, the June-July record temperature reached 47 degrees Celsius.More than 1,000 people have died in recent days due to heat in Spain and Portugal.

The temperature in the western French city of Nantes was 42 degrees Celsius, according to the French National Meteorological Office.

Heat waves are projected to become more frequent, more intense and longer due to human-induced climate change. Global temperatures are said to have increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the inception of industry.