In Britain, meteorologists warned that Sunday could see the mercury shoot up to its highest level ever, beating the record of 37.1 degrees CelsiusFahrenheit) set in Cheltenham, central England, in August 1990.

For the past week, thermometers across Europe have climbed to the uncomfortable mid and upper 30s Celsius, with several cities topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

The punishing heat has left 19 people dead in Spain and at least one in France -- a three-year-old girl who died of dehydration in her family's car, parked in the garden of their home near the Channel port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

With tourists flocking to museums and frolicking in fountains to cool off, forecasters said there was no real relief in sight -- France's national weather service Meteo France predicted the stifling heat would continue until Friday.

The unrelenting heat wave, combined with a severe drought, had also helped fuel devastating wildfires across the southern part of the continent that have left 20 dead -- 15 in Portugal and five in France.

The forest fires in Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have ravaged more than 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of pinewood and brush, most of it in Portugal.

Authorities in Lisbon estimated the blazes, now mostly under control, had caused damage totalling at least 925 million euros (1.05 billion dollars).

In southern France, where fast-moving forest fires have consumed large swathes of woodland off the fashionable Mediterranean coast, more than 700 firefighters on Sunday battled a blaze near the Riviera city of Nice.

Exhausted firefighters in Croatia -- which is experiencing its worst drought in half a century -- were tackling a blaze raging in Paklenica national park in the center of the country, Hina news agency reported.

Their task was made more hazardous by the fact that the hard-to-reach region has not been swept for the land mines that were liberally planted there during the country's 1991-1995 war.

The heat has caused major problems for Europe's farmers: producers in the German state of Brandenburg said the heat could destroy up to 80 percent of their crops, while in France, about one million chickens died last week.

The dry weather is also interrupting maritime traffic: in Romania, port authorities said the wrecks of two Nazi ships that sank in the Danube during World War II but recently resurfaced due to low water levels could block traffic on the river, one of Europe's longest waterways.

The heat wave was caused by an anticyclone which has anchored itself firmly over the west European land mass, holding off rain-bearing depressions over the Atlantic and funnelling hot air north from Africa.

Though there was no clear evidence putting the blame on global warming and greenhouse gas production, scientists at the World Meteorological Office point out that the world's 10 hottest recorded years have all taken place since 1987.

"The evidence seems to point to human factors -- that's basically the concentration of greenhouse gases," said Rajendra Pachauri, the head of a United Nations scientific panel on climate change.

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SPACE.WIRE