The UK’s hottest day destroyed their homes. They fear it’s a sign of worse ahead
As the sun beat down on her back garden in Dagenham, east London, the smell of smoke filled the air. Hilton passed it off as her neighbor lighting a bonfire, she told CNN. What played out in the hours to come was far worse. As temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital, grass fires are believed to have started in a nearby park before engulfing neighboring homes, and crossing onto the street where Hilton lives.”The police were everywhere, banging on people’s doors, screaming: ‘Get out! Get out!'” Hilton said of the chaos that ensued. The blaze destroyed 14 houses and damaged six more in the area, according to local officials, turning Hilton’s suburban neighborhood into the latest victim of extreme weather. “This is (because of) climate change,” Shumanska said, explaining how her friends living in hotter countries told her that it was cooler where they were than it was in London — a city famed for its mild and wet weather. But even after losing their home, Shumanska and her family are “trying to be positive.” “We lost everything, but we are safe,” she said. “We’ve lost all this material stuff — absolutely everything — but we are alive.”Before the school holidays began, Shumanska said that one of her sons had learned about the Great Fire of London, which destroyed parts of the capital in 1666. When their home burned down, “He (asked) me: ‘Mummy, is this the Great Fire of London?'” she said with a laugh.
