Three men died and thousands were forced from their homes on Tuesday as wildfires fuelled by a heatwave scorched southern Europe.

Heat alerts were issued in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans, with temperatures expected to soar above 40C.

The heatwave is another sign of climate change, which is fuelling longer, more intense and increasingly frequent bouts of extreme heat.

“Thanks to climate change, we now live in a significantly warmer world,” Akshay Deoras, a research scientist at the meteorology department in Britain’s University of Reading told AFP, adding that “many still underestimate the danger”.

An employee of a Spanish equestrian centre died from his injuries in Tres Cantos, a wealthy suburb north of Madrid, officials said — reportedly as he tried to save horses.

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