The blaze was deemed particularly dangerous due to unexploded ammunition left in the area, which is home to a military training facility.

Meanwhile, schools closed early and Germans flocked to lakes to cool down. In Austria, Vienna's famous horse-drawn carriages were taken off the streets to protect the animals from the sun.

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Temperatures are expected to be particularly unbearable in the northeast of Spain, with a stifling 45 degrees expected on Friday in the city of Girona, and 44 degrees in Zaragoza at the weekend. Five northern provinces were placed on an "orange alert" for a heatwave today, with another five to be added by the weekend.

"Hell is coming," Silvia Laplana, a television weather presenter, said. "Of course, it's hot in summer but when you have a heatwave that is so extensive and intense, during which records are forecast to be beaten, it's NOT normal," she added.

France, meanwhile, postponed end-of-school exams to next week, when temperatures of up to 40 degrees will finally start falling. Le Brevet, a national diploma taken by 14-year-olds, was set for Thursday and Friday.

Meteo France has placed two thirds of France on "orange alert" - one off the top-scale red. Scarred by a heatwave in August 2003 blamed for 15,000 deaths, many of them elderly people, authorities are taking no chances with Emmanuel Macron, the French President, promising the "whole government" was focused on the crisis.

With right-wing politicians suggesting the government was overdoing it, Agnes Buzyn, the Health Minister, said: "This isn't scaremongering. I'm asking everyone to take responsibility for themselves, their family and their neighbours and to avoid a backlog in emergency rooms due to people taking unnecessary risks."

Italy is expecting the mercury to rise to 42.7 degrees in some areas, breaking century-old records. On Monday, at the coastal town of Eloro in Sicily, 41 cars were engulfed by flames after a fire broke out close to a car park where beachgoers had left their vehicles.

The Telegraph, London