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Cypriot firefighters have spent Wednesday battling a huge wildfire which has forced people living in at least four villages in the southern Limassol area to evacuate.

Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis and Chief Fire Officer Nikos Longinos are at the scene of the fire, public broadcaster CyBC reported.

The broadcaster said authorities had initiated the “Icarus II” emergency response plan which is supported by 10 fire engines and six firefighting aircraft.

Personnel from the British military bases Akrotiri and Dhekelia are reportedly also assisting in the operation.

“I can confirm that there is considerable damage to some homes,” spokesperson for the fire service Andreas Kettis told  CyBC.

He said the Limassol fire broke out around noon on Wednesday and that fire crews are on the ground trying to bring it under control.

Meanwhile, the Civil Defence is evacuating the community of Agia Varvara in the southwestern city of Paphos after a new fire that broke out at 4pm in the area in the afternoon.

Two aircraft were sent to the area to help the five fire engines extinguish the blaze, but firefighting efforts were reportedly hampered by strong winds.

Wednesday’s fires broke out on the first day of a heatwave in Cyprus with forecasters expecting temperatures on Thursday to hit 45 degrees Celsius, making it the hottest day of the year.

High temperatures are expected to continue until at least Monday and authorities have issued an amber alert heat warning.

The Ministry of Health is urging the public to take necessary precautions to protect themselves from the heatwave.

It has advised vulnerable groups such as young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with chronic diseases to take particular care.

Heatwaves and climate change

Climatologists have sounded the alarm that climate change-linked activity is causing record-breaking temperatures across much of the Mediterranean region.

The Mediterranean “is on fire,” meteorologist Marta Almarcha wrote in a post for Spain’s eltiempo.es weather portal earlier this month.

Last week, a sea surface temperature of 30C was recorded by a tide gauge in Mallorca. 

Coastal areas around France and western Italy are also setting very high temperatures for this time of year.

In fact, almost the entire Mediterranean basin is suffering a marine heatwave, Almarcha added.

Researchers at Carbon Brief recently mapped every published scientific study detailing how climate change has influenced extreme weather.

This analysis covered 116 heat-related events in Europe. Of this total, scientists deemed 110 (95%) were made more severe or more likely because of climate change.

June heatwaves are around ten times more likely to occur now compared to pre-industrial times because of the impact of climate change, scientists at World Weather Attribution estimate.

Others say atmospheric events driving heatwaves have almost tripled in strength and duration since the 1950s.

The latest European State of the Climate report from the EU’s Copernicus service said that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and is experiencing serious impacts from extreme weather and climate change.