Europe's heatwave gripped Spain and Portugal on Friday, as governments checked for forest fires, Switzerland let its soldiers wear shorts and a Finnish supermarket invited customers to sleep over to stay cool.
Summer has already brought drought and forest fires as far apart as Britain and Greece, where scores of people died, and Sweden warned of forest fires on Friday.
Hot air from North Africa has caused the most severe heatwave since 2003 in Iberia, one of the worst years on record for forest fires.
Portugal's Civil Protection agency reported 426 firefighters were putting out, or checking fire alerts, in the north and centre. The worst fires typically only flare up late in the day when the weather is hottest.
Spanish and Portuguese temperatures will remain above 40 Celsius at least until Sunday, and could rise a further 2 or 3 degrees. That could push them above Europe's previous record high of 48C, set in Athens in 1977.
The previous record highs in both Spain and Portugal were just over 47C. In Portugal, local media ran stories on how temperatures could beat Death Valley in California, one of the hottest places on earth.
"Lisbon will be one of the hottest cities in the world this weekend because it's 10 in the morning right now and the weather is already way too hot," said Ana Pascoal, 56, a cleaner at a high-end restaurant. "It really is unbearable."
Several places in Portugal's parched southern Alentejo region were forecast to hit 47C. The country went on high alert in an effort to prevent a repeat of the worst fires in history last year, which killed 114 people.
Francois Jobard, a weather forecaster for Meteo France, said the hot air mass from North Africa "will possibly result in record temperatures in Portugal and Spain with 45C expected from now until Saturday, and even hotter than that."
At the other end of the Mediterranean, Greece was hit by wildfires that killed 91 people last month.
"I don't want to say anything bad but yesterday, while I was watching TV, I thought the same could happen here but I'm praying it doesn't," said Eva Stigliano, a Greek tourist visiting Portugal for the third time. "I've been here in the summer but it has never been this hot."
Lisbon's temperature reached 43C, unusual for the coastal capital.
AIR-CONDITIONED
Spanish authorities put out a heat wave warning for most of central Spain, expected to last until Sunday with temperatures of over 42C in some parts of Andalusia and Extremadura.
Two men have died of heat-stroke in the southeastern region of Murcia, Cadena Ser radio station reported on Wednesday. They were a 48-year-old man working on road works and a 78-year-old man who was working on his allotment, Cadena Ser said.
A branch of the K-Supermarket chain in Helsinki's Pohjois-Haaga district has invited 100 customers to sleep in its air-conditioned store on Saturday.
Finland's August average is 19C but temperatures approached 30C this week and few have air-conditioning at home. A store manager told the state broadcaster that beer sales would end at 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) as usual though snacks would be available.
In Switzerland, mountain railways reported booming business as city dwellers fled to the Alps. Fishery authorities in the canton of Zurich were combing creeks to rescue fish from suffocation as streams dry up or oxygen levels plunge.
The Swiss army let soldiers wear shorts and T-shirts instead of standard uniforms.
Further north in Scandinavia, temperatures hit records until a few days ago. In Sweden July was a record hot month and wildfires burnt in parts of the country.
Meanwhile, authorities on both sides of the Baltic Sea, in Sweden and Poland, have warned against swimming due to a huge bloom of toxic algae spreading because of hot temperatures.