Wildfires threaten to sweep across the country this weekend posing an 'exceptional risk' to homes, as an 'Extreme Heat' warning comes into force from today with temperatures set to reach at least 33C (91F) in London.
A double heat warning has been put in place by experts amid increasing heatwave temperatures that are set to soar, with Manchester set to reach 31C (88F), while Portsmouth will reach a balmy 29C (84F) - albeit not quite as high as the record-breaking 40.3C blast experienced last month.
The Met Office has also raised its Fire Severity Index to exceptional - the highest level - today for much of southern England, and Wales alongside an amber, as the mercury is forecast to climb to 'lethally hot' temperatures of 36C (97F) this weekend.
Police are looking to step up patrols for wildfires in high risk areas and there are also reports that tomorrow could see an official drought in the South announced by the Government.
The heat is likely to affect health, transport and working conditions, meteorologists said, as water companies are being urged to protect essential supplies heading into a 'likely very dry autumn'.
Met Office meteorologist Marco Petagna said: 'The risk is very high across much of central, southern and eastern England.
'Going into Friday and the weekend, it starts to increase further, going into the highest category of exceptional risk.'
Britain has been told to brace for a sweltering heatwave this week as a Level 3 Heat Health Alert also came into effect Tuesday and has been extended until Saturday - with little rain expected to help relieve the threat of drought which has prompted hosepipe bans and fire warnings.
Mark Hardingham, the chairman of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said that he 'can't remember a summer like this' in his entire 32-year career in the fire service.
Wildfires threaten to sweep across the country this weekend posing an 'exceptional risk' to homes, as an 'Extreme Heat' warning comes into force from today with temperatures set to reach at least 33C (91F) in London
Pictured: Sunseekers headed to Bournemouth beach on Wednesday to make the most of the sizzling temperatures
Pictured: Two Brits walk along the route of the Long Walk approaching Windsor Castle on Wednesday, as heat warnings are extended
He told The Telegraph: 'We're not going to see temperatures as hot as we saw three weeks ago, but that doesn't matter because the ground couldn't get any drier than it already is.
'The wildfires are as prevalent in semi-urban areas as they are in rural communities so it's difficult to know where the next one will be.'
Riccardo La Torre, national officer for the Fire Brigades Union, has warned that services across the UK are 'completely unprepared' for the level of risk posed by the imminent heatwave.
Mr La Torre told Sky News: 'These are brutal, brutal fires to fight. The temperature that they burn at, the speed at which they spread at.
'The reality is we've been left completely unprepared to do that as a fire and rescue service.
'We've had over a fifth of the workforce cut since 2010, that's over 11,500 firefighters cut. Yet we're asking them to deal with these extreme weather events in increasing regularity and increasing severity.
The Met Office has raised the Fire Severity Index to exceptional - the highest level - for much of southern England, and stretching as far west as Abergavenny in Wales, for this coming Sunday
Mark Hardingham, the chairman of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) told The Telegraph that he 'can't remember a summer like this' in his entire 32-year career in the fire service. Pictured: The Met Office's Fire Severity Index (FSI) which shows how the red 'highest risk' is spreading from Thursday (left) to Friday (middle) to Saturday (right)
Pictured: A raging wildfire broke out near a busy road in Herefordshire, just off from Chesham Road in Berkhamsted
A man walks his dog along a sun-bleached pathway in Richmond Park on Tuesday, as heat warnings are extended
A view of a dried up pond in the village of Northend in Oxfordshire, where Thames Water is pumping water into the supply network following a technical issue at Stokenchurch Reservoir
'The professionals on the ground have been warning that these conditions are coming and we very much saw the reality of that in these last few weeks.
Source of the Thames DRIES UP for the first time: Head of the river is now more than five MILES downstream
With parts of the UK experiencing the driest conditions since the drought of 1976, experts have warned that the source of the River Thames has dried up for the first time on record.
The source of the river was originally just outside Cirencester, according to The Rivers Trust.
However, following a continuous period of dry weather, it is now more than five miles downstream, near Somerford Keynes.
Around 6.5km upstream, residents in Ashton Keynes in North Wiltshire have revealed the area is completely dry, as half the UK population could face more hosepipe bans.
Speaking to The Guardian, Dr Rob Collins, director of policy and science at The Rivers Trust, explained: 'Following the prolonged dry weather, the source of the Thames in Gloucestershire has dried up, with a weak flow now only just about discernible more than 5 miles downstream (at Somerford Keynes).
'Under our changing climate we can anticipate the frequency and severity of such periods of drought and water scarcity to intensify, with increasing competition for a dwindling resource and devastating impacts on aquatic life.'
'Firefighters have been injured, firefighters have ended up in hospital, we've seen families lose their homes, we've seen businesses lost, infrastructure burn to the ground, because we simply can't get to these fires quick enough.
'When we do, we simply don't have the resources to deal with them adequately.'
Meanwhile, Met Office boss Paul Davies said the increasing heatwave temperatures may now occur once every five years - and annually by the end of the century.
He told The Mirror: 'When I started out as a forecaster, if someone had said in your lifetime you'll see 40 degrees, I'd have said; 'No, surely not!'.
'We are in uncharted waters. We're entering areas we've never experienced before and it's not just the UK, it's the planet as a whole.'
Families across the country are being warned to expect some uncomfortable nights, with temperatures unlikely to drop beyond the mid-to-high teens.
It comes as the driest first seven months of the year in decades and hot spells have left parts of the UK facing looming drought, prompting hosepipe bans and warnings about the impact on agriculture, rivers and wildlife.
The latest analysis from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) has warned that low or even exceptionally low river flows and groundwater levels are likely to continue for the next three months in southern England and Wales.
Mr Petagna said that rain could be on the horizon early next week, adding: 'There are signs that we could get some rain next week, but details at the moment are uncertain,' he said.
'What we really need is a few weeks of light rain to soak into the ground. Thunderstorms are more likely to cause some flooding issues because the ground is hard the water can't sink in.'
It comes as an Oxfordshire village has become the first in Britain to run dry, with residents forced to rely on deliveries of bottled and tanker water.
Northend, on the Buckinghamshire border, usually gets its water from the now dried-up Stokenchurch Reservoir.
Thames Water had to send water tankers and bottles to its residents, struggling after high demand on the natural resource in recent hot weeks.
Pictured: Reduced water levels at Hanningfield Reservoir in Essex on Wednesday afternoon
Pictured: An aerial view of the parched fields on the clifftop at Burton Bradstock on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset where the grass has been scorched by the hot sunshine and lack of rain during the summer drought condition
Martyn Read shared this image to his Twitter of a fire that had started 'just 150m from his home' in a field in Exeter
As temperatures continue to rise across the UK, one Twitter user, James, shared an image showing the aftermath of a fire that had started in his village. He wrote: 'Luckily it had already been harvested but the stubble went up quick. Fire service were there blooming quickly. Building in the background is a care home. Lucky escape'
Essex Fire Service posted an image on Tuesday evening after a field fire near the M25 junction 26-25 at Waltham Abbey had started, leaving behind a scorched trail
The company has also recently announced it will be issuing a hosepipe ban for 15million customers across London, Surrey and Gloucestershire in the coming weeks.
A Thames Water spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We're sorry to customers in the Stokenchurch area who are experiencing lower pressure than normal due to technical issues with our Stokenchurch reservoir. We have a team on site working hard to resolve this as soon as possible and the situation is improving and supplies have been restored to customers.
'We're using tankers to help boost supplies to customers in Northend to keep up water pressures for these customers so they do not see supply issues as well as delivering water bottles.
'Customers may experience lower than normal pressure during periods of higher demand. These times are typically in the morning and during the early evening.
'We've also identified everyone in the affected area who has pre-registered with us as having special requirements, such as being medically reliant on water, so we can get in touch and make sure we give them the help and support they need.
'We realise how inconvenient this is, especially during such hot weather, and appreciate customers' patience as we work to resolve things'
Last night Andrew Sells, head of Natural England between 2014 and 2019, accused water companies of selling off reservoirs which could have helped ease drought to housing developers.
'Several of our water companies preferred to build houses on some of their reservoirs, and last week we learned that together they have built precisely zero new reservoirs in the past 30 years', he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
'No doubt some reservoirs had reached the end of their working lives, but in abandoning this infrastructure, without any replacements, they have again put short-term profits ahead of long-term supply.'
The Rhine runs DRY and is set to become impassable to crucial coal barges, with Europe on course to suffer worst drought in 500 YEARS and 'extremely violent' wildfires ravaging France in 100F heat
By Jack Newman for MailOnline
Germany's most-important river is running dry as Europe suffers through a drought that is on course to become its worst in 500 years, with terrifying wildfires burning once again in France.
Water levels in the Rhine - which carries 80 per cent of all goods transported by water in Germany, from its industrial heartlands to Dutch ports - are now so low that it could become impassable to barges later this week, threatening vital supplies of oil and coal that the country is relying upon as Russia turns off the gas tap.
The Rhine is already lower than it was at the same point in 2018, when Europe suffered its last major drought. That year, the river ended up closing to goods vessels for 132 days, almost triggering a recession. Costs to transport goods by river this year have already risen five-fold as barges limit their capacity to stay afloat.
Economists estimate the disruption could knock as much as half a percentage point off Germany's overall economic growth this year, with experts warning the country was facing recession due to an energy crisis even before the drought hit.
Andrea Toreti, senior researcher at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, said: 'We haven't analysed fully [this] event, but based on my experience I think that this is perhaps even more extreme than in 2018.
'2018 was so extreme that looking back at this list of the last 500 years, there were no other events similar.'
Meanwhile wildfires are once again ripping their way across France, torching an area that was already badly-hit as temperatures soared to record levels last month.
The Rhine river - Germany's most-important waterway - is running so low that it may soon become impassable to barges, threatening huge economic damage
Transport vessels cruise past the partially dried riverbed of the Rhine river in Bingen, Germany, amid the ongoing droughts
Bone dry: Almost half of EU land is currently under a drought warning or worse because of a combination of heatwaves and a 'wide and persistent' lack of rain, experts have warned. A map (pictured) reveals the countries most at risk. Areas in orange are under 'warning' conditions, while 15 per cent of land has moved into the most severe 'alert' state (shown in red)
House boats are perched on a drying side channel of the Waal River due to drought in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands
Boat houses are seen on the banks of the Waal River in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, as Europe suffered through a drought
Europe has seen lower-than-average rainfall for the past two months, with rivers across the continent - including in Nijmegen, the Netherlands (pictured) - running very low
The droughts are not only affecting Germany, with Spain, southern France, Portugal and most of Italy suffering from the shortages
Since Tuesday, the so-called Landiras blaze in Gironde - near Bordeaux - has burned 15,000 acres of pine forest and forced the evacuation of almost 6,000 people.
'The fire is extremely violent and has spread to the Landes department' further south, home of the Landes de Gascogne regional park, the prefecture said in a statement. Local authorities of the wine-growing Gironde department said 500 firefighters were mobilised.
The prefecture warned the fire was spreading toward the A63 motorway, a major artery linking Bordeaux to Spain.
Speed limits on the highway have been lowered to 55 mph in case smoke starts to limit visibility, and a full closure could be ordered if the fire worsens and continues to spread.
The Landiras fire that ignited in July was the largest of several that have raged this year in southwest France, which like the rest of Europe has been buffeted by record drought and a series of heat waves over the past two months.
Fires were also raging on Tuesday in other parts of the country.
One broke out in the southern departments of Lozere and Aveyron, where close to 600 hectares have already burnt and where Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is due to go later in the day.
Another fire is in the Maine et Loire department in western France, where 1,600 acres have been scorched and 500 are threatened, according to local authorities.
Meanwhile, in Germany, barges carrying iron ore from Rotterdam to steelmaking plants in Duisburg were running at less than half capacity to avoid running aground.
In some places the Rhine was so shallow that other vessels were moored far below the quays where people walk. Signs warning people about dangerously high waters stuck out of the riverbed, and rocks lay exposed.
The resulting bottlenecks are another drag on Europe's largest economy, which is grappling with high inflation, supply chain disruptions and soaring gas prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.
The droughts are not only affecting Germany, with Spain, southern France, Portugal and most of Italy suffering from the shortages with ministers imposing emergency water restrictions.
The European Drought Observatory said 15 per cent of the bloc is on red alert due to crops suffering from 'severe water deficiency.'
As many as 95 French regions have brought in hosepipe bans, while 62 are at a 'crisis level' that only allows the use of water for essential needs.
More than 100 French towns have no running drinking water and are being supplied with special deliveries.
In Andalusia, one of Europe's hottest and driest regions, paddle-boats and waterslides lie abandoned on the cracked bed of Vinuela reservoir which is now 87 per cent empty.
A prolonged dry spell and extreme heat made July the hottest month in Spain since at least 1961. Spanish reservoirs are at just 40 per cent of capacity on average in early August, well below the ten-year average of around 60 per cent, official data shows.
A flooded Portuguese village has reemerged from the depths with its stony foundations still intact as a result of the drought
An aerial view of the people on a boat between the partially flooded village Vilarinho da Furna during the summer season
People walk arround the remains of the church of Sant Roma de Sau as it emerges from the low waters of the Sau Reservoir, north of Barcelona, Spain
A sheep drinks water from the dried bed of the Guadiana river during a severe drought in the Cijara reservoir, in Villarta de los Montes, Spain
Meanwhile, a flooded Portuguese village dating back to the first century has reemerged from the depths with its stony foundations still intact as a result of the drought.
Vilarinho da Furna in Braga, northern Portugal, was intentionally submerged by the state in 1971 to build a reservoir, now bearing the same name, on the Homem River.
Every summer, the forgotten village reappears and becomes a popular attraction, with locals and tourists walking along the ruins that have been underwater for 50 years.
But this year, more of the village has been uncovered due to the sweltering heat that has suffocated Europe this summer.
Locals say that 70 per cent of the former granite houses are now visible.
The guardian of Vilarinho da Furna, António Barroso, told Renascença that: 'Since 2009, the water has not gone down as it is now.'
The village had an unusual communitarian social system in which each family had a member on the council, known as the Junta.
The practice is believed to date back to the Visigoths and the leader of the Junta was chosen among the married men of the village, and they would serve for six months.
The Junta would discuss important local issues such as harvesting, transport, cattle herding and trapping wolves to maintain the self-sustaining community.
The Junta was also responsible for judging crimes and imposing punishments, which could lead to exclusions from Vilarinho da Furna, meaning they would not receive any of the benefits of the communitarian system.
The village used to house 300 people who were forced to relocate to neighbouring towns in 1970.
The 57 families of the Geresian town left the stones houses as they were before the water drained their properties.
There had been strong resistance to the dam among the villagers but they were unable to stop the government who offered them compensation for the forced relocation.
Visitors have to access the village via a dirt road that also leads to three river beaches in the area run by the Association of Former Inhabitants of Vilarinho da Furna (AFURNA).
During the drought, authorities have been able to clean the standing pillars and structures normally covered by the reservoir.
AFURNA charges entrance to the village during the summer weeks in order to maintain it and prevent hordes of crowds ruining the buildings.
Barroso, the 77-year-old guardian of the village, is responsible for two thousands hectares in the area.
FRANCE: A wildfire that destroyed thousands of acres of tinder-dry forest in southwest France has flared again amid a fierce drought and the summer's latest heat wave, officials said Wednesday. Pictured: The front of a wildfire is seen in Saint Magne, in the Gironde region of southwestern France, on Tuesday. A small village is seen in the foreground as the smoke rises
Since Tuesday, the so-called Landiras blaze has burned 15,000 acres of pine forest and forced the evacuation of almost 6,000 people in an area already hit last month by huge blazes. No one has been injured in the coastal area that draws huge summer tourism crowds, but 16 houses were destroyed near the village of Belin-Beliet
Pictured: Smoke rises from a forest fire near the town of Romeyer in the Diois massif located in the Drôme department and at the foot of the Vercors massif, Tuesday
Pictured: A firefighting plane sprays fire retardant chemicals over a forest in France as smoke rises into the air
There were no reports of any injuries in wildfire in The Netherlands, but authorities said the main coastal road was closed in the province that is packed with tourists throughout the summer
Pictured: Blackened earth is seen from above in The Netherlands after a wildfire spread through near the Brouwersdam area
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