Reuters, Brussels
As wildfires incinerate swathes of the Mediterranean, United Nations officials and disaster experts have called for an urgent revamp of firefighting to cope with a new era of mega-blazes.
Nearly 80 people have died in fires that have swept through Algeria, Greece, Italy and Turkey, driving thousands from their homes and underscoring projections in this week's IPCC report of spiralling "fire weather conditions" by mid-century.
In the new climatic era, mega-fires may erupt within minutes of ignition, said Sebastien Penzini, deputy Europe chief of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
"The evolving nature of wildfires obliges us to really change our paradigm and put more emphasis on fire prevention than suppression," he said.
"Because the fires to come - and those we're already observing in Europe - are completely beyond (our) control."
In a week when Italy hit 48.8 Celsius - which could be a European record - experts like Mr Penzini urged nations to adopt a raft of reforms, including mandatory fire breaks, new regulations and improved rural development.
"Prevention is not a cost," Mr Penzini said. "It's an investment which deserves and requires more budgets and funding."
He called for tough new laws to regulate outdoor fires and oblige homeowners in fire-prone areas to maintain "defensible areas" - buffer spaces between houses and nearby grass, trees and shrubs.
The rise in extreme weather events is also raising bigger policy questions about the safest places to live in Europe - with risks posed by having both too many and too few people in areas that are vulnerable to scorching summer heat.
Turkey's southern Mediterranean coast was hit last month by its biggest fires to date. Three people died and hotels in the popular beach resorts of Marmaris and Didim had to be evacuated due to separate blazes.
"As a strategic question, should those resorts even be there?" asked Peter Moore, a fire management specialist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, adding that reducing fuel loads in these areas should be the priority. Conversely, shrinking rural populations - with some 4 million small farms abandoned between 2005 and 2016, according to European Union - mean tracts of land are becoming overgrown and dry, and at greater risk of catching fire.
Penzini said that "funds for encouraging and promoting rural development and agriculture" were needed to decrease the "fuel loads" of burnable plant material in the countryside.
