Brit tourists on holiday in many European destinations, including the Costa Del Sol, are set to sizzle as the Continent is hit by record-breaking searing temperatures.
As devastating wildfires sweep across Greece a new record temperature was recorded in Europe on Wednesday.
The city of Syracuse, in Sicily, reached a sweltering 48.8C, topping the previous 48C that had been recorded in Athens in 1977.
Firefighters said on social media they had carried out more than 3,000 operations in Sicily and Calabria in the last 12 hours, employing seven planes to try to douse the flames from above.
"We must immediately respond to this emergency, providing economic relief to those who have lost everything," said Agriculture Minister Stefano Patuanelli.
The country's health ministry has issued 'red alerts' for extreme heat for a number of regions over the Mediterranean.
And the soaring temperatures will be felt elsewhere in huge swathes of Europe, including popular tourist destinations.
Mail Online reports that warnings have been declared in the south of France because of a 'very severe risk' of fires due to dry and windy weather.
Spain's weather service has formally recorded a scorching temperature as high as 42.8C in Real City, near Madrid on Wednesday.
Jaen and Toledo also saw highs that were above 42C.
For the Thursday forecast Spain released via it's weather service an extreme heat warning with expectations the hot temperatures will continue to soar.
The warning has urged people to be aware of the possibility of 'adverse effects on people's health and to a significant risk of forest fires.'
The warning read: "Both the maximums and the minimums will reach values well above the normal in summer in a large part of the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
"Only the Cantabrian area and a good part of Galicia will not be affected by this situation."
Forecasters are predicting highs of between 42C and 44C in some parts of the country over the next two days with the hottest weather to be felt on Friday.
The blistering predictions comes after reports revealed that global heating is dangerously close to being out of control with humans “unequivocally” to blame.
A new document by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the starkest alarm bell yet about the speed and scale of the climate emergency, with recent effects from floods to heatwaves.
Drawing on 14,000 scientific studies, it gives the most devastating picture yet of the impacts humans are having through activities like burning fossil fuels – and the future we faces if we fail to rapidly tackle the crisis.
Its summary reads: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”
Previous IPCC reports only said it was “extremely likely” that industrial activity was to blame, but co-author Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Oxford University, said: “There is no uncertainty language in this sentence, because there is no uncertainty that global warming is caused by human activity and burning of fossil fuels.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it a “code red for humanity”, adding: “The alarm bells are deafening. This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”
