A heatwave across southern Europe forced France to take three nuclear reactors offline, drove wildfires that killed five people in Greece, and placed a Spanish town under a toxic-smoke alert [1].
France took three reactors offline, at the Chooz and Cattenom plants, as the heat bore down on the system [1].
In Greece, wildfires killed five people and burned more than 12,000 hectares [1]. Meteorologist Theodore Giannaros described the summer as producing "one of the worst fire crises" the country has faced in 8 to 10 years [1].
In Spain, authorities placed the area around Roales del Zamora under a toxic-smoke alert as fire threatened the town [1].
Three countries, three different failures, one cause. The same stretch of heat that put reactors on standby in France was burning land in Greece and fouling the air in Spain, a reminder that a heatwave is no longer a single-sector problem [1].
