As blazes continue to sweep across Europe, Australian firefighters could be deployed if the call for help comes from overseas. No formal request has been made yet.

The UK has emerged from a week of extreme heat and fires in which airport runways have melted, 15 major blazes have swept the country and dozens of firefighters have been injured.

The country set a record for hottest temperature, with eastern England sweltering through 40.3 degrees on Tuesday. By lunchtime, 29 locations in the UK had reached similar temperatures. The heat is forecast to ease for the remainder of the week and a top of 26 degrees was tipped for London on Thursday.

“This is not normal; these are exceptional times,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told BBC News.

Stephen Belcher, chief scientist of the Meteorological Office for the UK, said in a video statement. that “it’s virtually impossible for the UK to experience 40 degrees Celsius in an undisrupted climate”.

“Climate change, driven by greenhouse gases, has made these extreme temperatures possible – and we’re actually seeing that possibility now,” he said.

Meanwhile, firefighters in Greece struggled to contain new fires on Wednesday around Athens and countries in southern Europe took stock of the damage caused.

Cooler weather gave firefighters in Spain and Portugal some respite, but temperatures are forecast to rise back to 40 degrees in the coming days.

Councillor with the Climate Council and Macquarie University biology professor Lesley Hughes said the scenes out of Europe were shocking, but it was what scientists had been warning would happen as climate extremes worsen.

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“These extreme climate conditions kill people, it kills wildlife, it damages ecosystems. It shows we are really not prepared. We need to address the root causes of the problem such as reducing greenhouse gases. We have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible and take mitigation action,” she said.

“We’ve got to approach these events not as a one-off, highly unusual once in a lifetime or once in 500-year event. We need to start approaching them as examples of what we might see in the future.”

With AP