Wildfires in Serbia and Bosnia, floods and fires in Spain, and severe storms in Poland forced thousands of people to evacuate as firefighters, army helicopters, and emergency crews scrambled across the continent. The weather hit ordinary people first. Homes, roads, rail lines, livestock, and holiday plans took the damage while state agencies moved in after the fact, trying to contain what had already spread.
Fortress Europe Meets Fire and Flood
In Serbia, the EU sent helicopters and firefighters to support local crews battling a blaze that engulfed more than 1,600 hectares of vegetation in the Deliblatska Pescara nature reserve, 60 kilometres east of Belgrade. The effort was also being assisted by a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 water bomber deployed since Thursday, alongside several Serbian army helicopters. Ivica Dacic, Serbia's Interior Minister, said, "The situation is extremely difficult," and added that "more than 400 people are deployed there on a daily basis." The numbers tell the story of a state response built around emergency deployment, not prevention. When the fire came, the machinery arrived with helicopters and uniforms.
The crisis spread into the border area between Bosnia and Croatia, where a large fire broke out on Saturday. Bosnian police closed the main highway connecting Trebinje in Bosnia to Dubrovnik in Croatia, forcing thousands of tourists to turn back and alter their holiday plans. Several villages around the small town of Ivanica were evacuated as the flames approached homes, and local firefighters reported that some livestock was caught in the fire and burnt. Croatian firefighters from nearby Dubrovnik arrived to assist Bosnian crews in battling the forest fire, which was spreading over an area more than 16 kilometres in diameter across narrow, difficult-to-access terrain. Supported by helicopters, emergency teams continued to fight the blaze, but relentless heat and strong winds pushed the fire further inland. The Trebinje area had not seen rain for months, leaving the parched landscape exceptionally vulnerable during one of the hottest and driest summers in recent history.
The State Arrives After the Damage
Spain faced a weekend of contrasting weather extremes, and the human cost landed fast. Torrential rain and flooding in Tarragona left 11 people injured and disrupted road and rail services after more than 145 mm fell in some areas. Further strong thunderstorms were forecast across eastern and northeastern Spain, while an unusually powerful Atlantic low was bringing heavy rain to Galicia. Elsewhere in the country, firefighters in Spain’s eastern Valencia region continued battling intense wildfires. A blaze broke out in the town of Segorbe late Thursday after a lightning strike and began spreading rapidly Friday afternoon as winds shifted, leading authorities to raise the wildfire emergency to Level 2.
Personnel from Spain’s Military Emergency Unit and local fire departments joined the response, while more than 1,000 residents from the nearby town of Gatova were forced to evacuate over fears for their homes. Supported by aerial resources, crews have since managed to stabilise the fire after it burned around 630 hectares. The events marked a sharp shift from extreme heat earlier in the week, when temperatures reached up to 44°C. The pattern is familiar: heat, fire, evacuation, then the state’s emergency units, all moving through the same exhausted terrain.
Poland’s Storms, Warnings, and Evacuations
Further north, severe weather also struck Poland. Since Friday, storms have wreaked havoc across the country, with firefighters responding to more than 6,500 incidents. The storms hit residents in many areas, forcing the precautionary evacuation of 12 scout camps amid floods and power cuts. Brigadier Karol Kroć from the State Fire Service told the Polish Press Agency that no injuries have been reported so far. On Sunday, storms were still expected in northern Poland, as the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management issued yellow weather warnings for two small regions, with a local forecast of heavy rainfall up to 30 litres per square metre and wind gusts of up to 70 kilometres per hour. Hail was also possible in some areas.
The general weather in the country on Sunday had improved significantly, and weather conditions across the rest of Poland were expected to be much calmer. But the week’s damage had already been done. Across Serbia, Bosnia, Spain, and Poland, the same picture repeated itself: extreme weather, emergency evacuations, and state institutions rushing to manage the consequences after people had already been pushed out of homes, camps, roads, and fields.