Wildfires intensified across southern Europe at the weekend, with flames encircling Bursa, Turkey’s fourth-largest city. Authorities said 1,765 residents were moved to safety and a firefighter died of a heart attack as the blaze scorched about 3,000 hectares and closed the highway to Ankara. The government has declared the neighbouring provinces of Izmir and Bilecik disaster zones after a fortnight of fires that have killed at least 14 people nationwide. Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said crews confronted 76 to 84 active fires on Saturday and Sunday, deploying more than 2,300 firefighters, 850 vehicles, six aircraft and four helicopters. Turkey recorded an all-time high of 50.5 °C in the southeastern province of Sirnak on Friday, and forecasters warned that unseasonably high temperatures, drought and strong winds could keep conditions critical into October. In Greece, firefighters battled five major fronts on Sunday, including blazes on the islands of Kythira and Evia and in the Peloponnese. The fire service logged 55 new outbreaks in 24 hours; while most were contained quickly, authorities described the risk of flare-ups as “very high” amid temperatures expected to reach 44 °C. Five firefighters were hospitalised and several villages were evacuated. Athens has requested support from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, and additional water-bombing aircraft began arriving over the weekend. Neighbouring Albania, Bulgaria and other Balkan states also reported dozens of wildfires as the region endured a protracted heatwave. Meteorologists and officials linked the scale and frequency of the blazes to increasingly extreme weather conditions associated with climate change.