Heatwave Linked to 2,700 Excess Deaths as Fires Spread
This summer’s heatwaves are estimated to have caused more than 2,700 excess deaths in England and Wales across May and June, according to a study by scientists at Imperial College, the Met Office and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which attributes around 1,100 of them to human-caused climate change. It lands as the heat holds into midweek: a moorland fire at Tintwistle in the Peak District has been declared a major incident, one of several large wildfires burning across England and Wales, with the peak forecast for Thursday and Friday.
The death estimate is the number that should reframe how the heat is understood: not a summer novelty but a lethal event, killing quietly and mostly out of sight — the elderly in overheated flats, those with heart and lung conditions, the drownings that spike as people seek to cool off. That researchers can now attribute a specific share of the deaths to climate change is the sharp edge of attribution science, turning a general warning into a countable toll. The fires are the visible danger: ground dried by the second-driest spring on record catches from the smallest spark, and crews are fighting blazes on many fronts, with the worst of the heat still to come later this week. Hosepipe bans are spreading as the drought deepens. Watch for any escalation to a red alert, the peak temperatures on Thursday and Friday, and the admissions and mortality data that will measure the true cost once the heat finally breaks.