Over 2,000 firefighters sent to battle major blazes in Portugal

Firefighters in Italy continue to battle raging blazes. Late Friday, some 150 people were trapped in two seaside areas in the port city of Catania, before being rescued.

Four people have died as the country reels from the devastation wreaked by the fires. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the country "will continue to take all necessary steps to heal our nation's wounds."

Amid the current heatwave, Italy is struggling to contain the wildfires that are raging around the country. In addition to the scorching heat, there is a variety of reasons why wildfires have become such a problem.

Fires rage in Castel di Lucio, Sicily. Emergency services are rushing to stem the blazes which are scorching parts of Italy's southern regions of Sicily and Calabria.

Spain is on alert for wildfires as a heatwave that has enveloped southeastern Europe in recent days shifts west. Temperatures are forecast to reach highs of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in much of the Iberian peninsula in the coming days. As firefighters try to extinguish a fire in Tarragona, forestry agents try to prevent a new fire from breaking out near Barcelona amid the worst heat wave in nearly 20 years.

In the vast and sparsely populated Siberian region of Russia, blazes have so far burned through more than 9.2 million hectares (22.7 million acres), an area the size of Portugal, according to Russia's forestry agency. The head of a Siberian region has urged residents to stay at home as smoke from raging forest fires raises health concerns.

Residents of the southern Portuguese city of Evora seek shade and other ways to cool down as temperatures hit 40 degrees.

Violent forest fires have been raging in the Var region of southern France where thousands of people have been evacuated including tourists from campsites. The fires are spreading at a speed of 4km per hour and hundreds of firefighters are battling the blaze in windy conditions.

Fires sweep through a forest in Chiquitania, a transition zone between the Amazon and the Gran Chaco lowlands in eastern Bolivia, where large blazes have already ravaged at least 200,000 hectares, according to reports from local authorities.

Russia's central regions are battling "extreme" wildfires fuelled by an unusual heatwave that comes after forest fires linked to climate change ravaged Siberia for most of the summer.

In Portugal's Agueda valley, south of Porto, the bike manufacturing industry is flourishing, particularly for electric bicycles. No other EU country makes more bikes than Portugal. The nation of 10 million inhabitants, or just over 2 percent of the EU population, produces a quarter of the bloc's bicycles. This reindustrialisation success story is the consequence of a growing passion for cycling in Europe. Our regional correspondents report.

A refurbished football pitch commissioned by Nike to honour legendary player Cristiano Ronaldo has opened to the public in the star's hometown in Santo Antonio, as seen on Wednesday. A local resident could be seen kicking a ball around the court, which came complete with a painted goal. The inspirational phrase 'Greatness starts with a goal' woven into its netting.