Europe's summer of infernos

Spurred on by pressure and funding from the EU, a reform of Portugal's forestry management is already under way, and new technology will be employed to demarcate woodland areas into zones which can be more effectively administered by fire services, says Mr. Vieira.

Meanwhile, Rui Esteves, president of the Firefighters Union in Castelo Branco, is urging Portugal to impose tougher sentences on arsonists. Of 185 people arrested for arson between 1997 and 2002, only four received prison sentences.

According to Jesus San Miguel, coordinator of the forest fire mapping system for the EU, high-risk areas remain in southern France, southern Italy, the Balkan coastline, and the central part of Spain and throughout Portugal, the hardest hit.

Officials say Portugal has qualified for emergency assistance from the European Union's Solidarity Fund. Portugal's estimated fire damages - about €1 billion - almost equal the total amount of the fund.

So far, Portugal's fires have claimed 15 lives and left over 300 people hospitalized. The government, already struggling with budget deficits, has announced a €70 million emergency relief fund to compensate people affected by the catastrophe.

Estimates of the number of deaths across Europe during the heatwave range from 50 to 200 people.

Paris has reported an average of 600 calls per day from people suffering heat-related illnesses.

Earlier this week, Dr. Patrick Pelloux, a French emergency-room physician, told a French daily that in the last four days the heat killed 50 people in France, mostly seniors, in Paris and its surrounding suburbs. He claimed that French officials had known for months about forecasts of high heat but had not mobilized a plan to deal with it when the temperatures rose.

Responding to Mr. Pelloux's accusation, the hospital administration of Paris postponed all scheduled nonemergency procedures and increased bed capacity.

The French government said it was hard to determine if the 50 deaths were weather-related, because it is often unclear whether patients admitted to hospitals suffer only from heat or from other ailments.

The heat wave has also triggered controversy over France's use of nuclear energy.

After demand for power to run fans and air conditioners rose, straining the power grid, the government allowed the state-owned utility to temporarily raise the temperature of the cooling water it pumps into French rivers from nuclear power plants, France's chief source of electricity.

"For years nuclear power has been marketed as environmentally friendly," hammers Stéphane Lhomme, a spokesman for Get Out of Nuclear, a local group opposed to nuclear power, "well, the façade has just crumbled." He says the hotter water could hurt the wildlife in rivers and cause other ecological damage.

While forecasts in some parts of Europe are predicting some relief from the searing temperatures by the weekend, major rain has not been forecast.

• Rupert Eden in Portalegre, Portugal, and Terrence Murray in Paris contributed to this report.

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