A fierce heatwave is continuing to roll across southern and central Europe, bringing temperatures of up to 44C (111.2F) to parts of Spain, sparking forest fires in Greece and Croatia, and prompting governments to urge people to take special care as the mercury rises.

In Spain, the state meteorological agency, Aemet, said temperatures on Friday could hit 40C across large parts of the country – and even 44C in areas of Andalucía – as the first heatwave of the summer hit. Aemet said the high temperatures, caused by a mass of “very hot, dry and dusty air” from North Africa, were expected to last until Saturday.

“Today is forecast to be the hottest day of this heat episode, with temperatures that could exceed 40C in large areas of the southern half of Spain, in the Ebro valley and in the interior of Mallorca,” said Luis Bañon, a spokesperson for Aemet.

“Today, the skies will remain full of sand from the Sahara, especially in the south-east of the peninsula, in Ceuta, Melilla, the Balearics and the eastern Canaries.”

Spain’s health ministry issued alerts for large parts of the country, calling on people to take all necessary precautions against the high temperatures: “When it comes to the heat: protect yourself; hydrate yourself; refresh yourself, and take care of more vulnerable people.”

Héctor Tejero, the ministry’s head of health and climate change, said people needed to take the heat seriously and change their behaviour accordingly.

“We’re not talking about polar bears and all that stuff, we’re talking about something that affects your health,” he said in an interview with the online newspaper elDiario.es on Friday.

“The heat is killing 3,000 people a year and it’s going to get worse. But while exposure to extreme heat is going to rise, we can also step up our adaptation to it … Although it’s hotter in Spain than it was 20 years ago, fewer people are dying because homes are better adapted, because we have air conditioning, and because people are getting into a culture of dealing with the heat.”

In Greece, the second heatwave of the summer brought hot, dry winds, forest fires and temperatures of up to 43C on Thursday.

Firefighters fought two large blazes on Thursday, one near a village on the outskirts of the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a brush fire on the island of Kea, near Athens. Emergency services ordered the evacuation of two areas on Kea, while local media said the fire near Thessaloniki had damaged several homes.

“We appeal to the public to be particularly careful as over the next few days there is a very high risk of the outbreak of serious wildfires,” a government spokesperson, Pavlos Marinakis, said. “Even one spark can cause a major catastrophe.”

The authorities shut all archaeological sites in Athens for a second consecutive day on Thursday and restricted outdoor work.

Like many countries in Europe, high temperatures have disrupted daily activities repeatedly since June. Hundreds of wildfires, which scientists link to the climate emergency, have broken out following the warmest winter on record.

Faced with what is forecast to be the country’s longest heatwave on record, the government has ordered some businesses not to let their employees perform heavy outdoor duty from midday until 5pm this week as the mercury is expected to reach 42C in parts of the country.

Italy, meanwhile, put 14 cities under the highest level of alert as temperatures were expected to climb past 40C, particularly in central and southern regions. The health ministry said it would further extend the red alert to 17 Italian cities on Friday, as the intense heat was forecast to continue until Sunday.

Dozens of firefighters and three water-bombing planes were tackling a forest fire that broke out late on Thursday near Croatia’s popular coastal resort of Trogir, officials said.

About 70 firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading to houses and a hotel complex, the national firefighting association said.

The fire near Trogir, on the central Adriatic coast, was under control and additional firefighting forces were arriving in the area, it added. “There is no threat to houses and tourists,” the chief fire commander, Slavko Tucakovic, said.

In the village of Seget Donji, the fire engulfed a large forest area by the sea near a tourist camping site, the state-run HRT television reported.

Croatia, like the rest of the Balkans, has been hit by a prolonged heatwave that started earlier this month, with temperatures exceeding 37C. On Tuesday, Serbia’s state power company reported record consumption due to the use of air conditioning.

Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report