this is bbc news, the headlines: emmanuel macron has called for a de—escalation of trade tensions — at an informal dinner ahead of sunday's g7 talks. leaders will also try to resolve differences over climate change and brexit. the european council president donald tusk says it may be the last chance to restore harmony among leading industrial nations. brazil's armed forces have begin a major operation to fight fires in the amazon — following an international outcry. more than 40,000 troops are to be deployed across six states. european leaders had criticised president jair bolsonaro‘s stance on the environment and threatened to impose commercial sanctions. police have used tear gas and rubber bullets to try and disperse anti—government protesters in hong kong. officers are also said to have charged at demonstrators with batons outside a police station. it's the 12th consecutive weekend of protests.

now on bbc news, click. this week, another chance to see our firefighting special when we tackle blazes from the air, on the ground and even on rails. in the summer and autumn of 2018, california experienced they claimed the lives of over 80 people and whole towns were destroyed. but as residents tried to escape, the firefighters did what they always do —

they ran towards the danger. it is a profession that relies on courage, education and, increasingly, the latest science and technology to better understand how fires behave and how to beat back the flames. and if you want to be a firefighter, this is where you learn the craft. the international fire training centre in darlington, in the north of england. this is where brave firefighters come from around the world to learn the latest techniques in fighting all kinds of blazes. they can simulate a huge variety of fire scenarios here, oil rigs, industrialfires. that is an overturned fuel tanker, and they can simulate any size of aircraft from the smallest to the largest. that is an airbus a380

and this is a boeing 747. and it is notjust about gearing up and grabbing the hose. every fire is different. and each needs to be treated intelligently to make sure you and the people you are trying to save have the best chance of survival. wow! my goodness. they are using the water as a protective shield. so it keeps the two fires apart, using the water. keeping the left—hand one at bay and then extinguishing the right one before we deal with the left. the centre tries to make each scenario as realistic as possible, not just the fire, but the treatment of the casualties as well. it is fascinating to see the science behind firefighting.

for example, in a kerosene fuel fighter, water will not put it out. this cone of water controls the blaze so that another firefighter can come in with a powder extinguisher. that is what finally tames the flames. and once they're gone, does that mean the job is done? well, that is where this thermal imaging camera comes in to see what our eyes cannot. so once it looks like the fire is out, you still have to cover the area in waterjust in case there are hotspots. you can see here the vent on the top of this engine is still white hot according to this thermal imaging camera. and there are many other ways to detect and deal with fires. lara lewington has been looking at some of them. for the past two years, half of the uk's fire brigades have been deploying these drones.

they focus on the safety of firefighters and their onboard hd and thermal imaging cameras can provide much greater visibility which means a better understanding of a fire and the way that it is spreading. using a drone we can get pretty much an instant overview of the entire fire in underfive minutes and start moving our machines and our firefighters around just like chess pieces, really, all controlled by drone footage. it also brings us a massive benefit as we can see fires as they develop. the team have also used them for rescues and searching for missing people in quarries or in water. the hd camera is able to clearly zoom in on a face up to half a mile away. but of course when it comes to the spread of fires, what has happened recently in california is at the forefront of our minds. the university of westminster is researching a system that

combines sensors on the ground and those in a drone. the aim, a solution for wildfires. these solar powered prototype sensors are tracking carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen, humidity, temperature, gps and altitude. the aim is to combine them into one miniaturised cost effective version which could be deployed en masse in areas susceptible to wildfires, providing immediate feedback. if there is something it will alert all their neighbours also, form into a network, alert, take measurements, convey to the master node which then conveys it further up to the server which then alerts the drones that come up and get a visual. the plane comes with all the information that it has got from the drones, from the ground sensors and it knows what the windspeed is what wind direction is,

what the temperature variation is. it knows where the fire will be when the plane rendezvous with it and then it makes a list from the air and then the heavens open with these lovely pellets flying in as they hit the target where the fire is and you can fight fires day and night, 2a a day with no visibility. meanwhile, this is the stinger. it can pierce through metal and pretty much any roof, dramatically blasting foam or water into the heart of a blaze. the quantity and force of that water is pretty incredible. this pumps 1000 litres a minute with an even more powerfuljet to the side, capable of 4.5 times that. it also has an on—board thermal imaging camera to assist with that precision. blackburn is currently the only uk

fire service using this kit. i'm told it costs around £600,000. but maybe as costs drop and this technology evolves, this next generation of firefighting will become the norm. that was lara. and back at the international fire training centre, i am about to be shut inside a mock boeing 747. see, when it comes to fire, sometimes it is not the one right in front of you that is the most dangerous. it is the one that is waiting to ignite. this is to demonstrate what happens when flammable vapours up high reach an ignition source. it is called a flashover and it looks like this.

i tell you, just a tiny bit of fire in this enclosed environment really shows that smoke is the real killer. my goodness, you can hardly breathe, it is stinging my eyes. they use so much water here every year that it would be silly if they didn't try and reuse it, so that is exactly what they try to do. all the water, the kerosene, foam, the powder and general sludge from the site flow into a drainage system that goes underground and ends up in a small lagoon over here where the kerosene floats to the top and is skimmed off and they can actually reuse it. it will burn again. the rest of the liquid ends up in the next lagoon where the solids settle out and all you are left with is this watery foamy mix which gets pumped to

the reed beds over there. the foam is made of animal protein which the reeds actually feed on. so they effectively suck the foam out of the liquid. so all you are left with at the end of the day is relatively clean water. as well as the practical firefighting that happens here at the international fire training centre, there is plenty of theory to be learned about the unusual ways that fire can behave. a real danger to firefighters is when a fire in a sealed room starves itself of oxygen so it looks like the fire has gone out but the whole place is still really hot. and if a firefighter opens a door to come in, oxygen rolls in and starts to mix with the gases and they become flammable again and that's when you get a backdraft.

so... wouldn't it be good if firefighters could use technology to see what they are getting themselves into? that is what paul carter has been looking at in switzerland. for firefighters, it is often the things they cannot see that are the most dangerous. the helmet i am wearing has a thermal imaging camera fitted to the side. what is unique is that it incorporates a small google glass style heads—up display. it is visible over one eye, giving firefighters thermal imaging without obscuring normal vision. i'm going to use it to enter this very smoky room and see what i can see. luckily it is not too smoky and here at the moment and i can actually still see but once the smoke really starts to get up, as strange as it may sound, my view of that fire

is going to completely disappear. in a modern building, there is a lot of synthetic materials, buildings are close together. so there is a lot of smoke development and fire actually may be hidden behind smoke or maybe people hidden on the floor where you don't see it, the thickness of the smoke is a real issue for firefighters. you always have access to the image which starts adding some additional advantages then, is that you would also use the thermal camera, where before it was impossible, so working with the firehose, you can see as well if you are aiming right, for example. just firefighters protect us, keeping them protected is also critical. and nothing is also more important than the clothing they wear. one of the biggest issues with firefighters right now is that their gear

prevents them from evacuating their own body heat so lots of developments actually go in the direction of preventing heat stress for firefighters. making their uniforms fireproof and heat—resistant is a no—brainer but doing so well, making it flexible, breathable and light, is a whole different challenge. at the dupont european technical centre in geneva, they've developed a material which can withstand extremely high temperatures. it's made of a material which bubbles when exposed to high heat, insulating the wearer. it has been proven that if your body temperature and core temperature raises above a certain level, you start doing the wrong decisions, it affects your brain function and that's exactly what you do not want to have happen for firefighter. eventually he would not realise when he is in extreme danger or would realise it too late. you can feel how raised the surface is, these bubbles, for want of a better word,

have kind of lifted off the fabric compared to the bit that hasn't been exposed to the fire. naturally, these fabrics have to be vigorously tested and certified and in the centre's own lab, they conduct a variety of burning tests to ensure the materials are robust. as a comparison, i looked at what happens when the same tests are conducted on regular cotton. the result was rather terrifying. my goodness. i mean, it's completely on fire. yes. it's burned through. they've also developed a smart heat—sensing glove that firefighters can use to detect the temperature of a surface or doors to help protect against backdrafts. now, switzerland may not be the first place that comes to mind

when you think of fire. but it's surprisingly advanced when it comes to firefighting tech. for example, it's the only country in europe to have a firefighting train. this cabin is actually pressurised so in the event of a fire, this can be operated as a safe breathing environment. this bad boy is one of 16 used across the country and it's an absolute beast. it can be used for a wide variety of tasks, only some of them specifically related to firefighting. it can be used as a rescue vehicle for people or other trains, it can pick up derailed trains or it can simply be used to transport fire crews more quickly and directly by road. but let's be honest.

fighting fires is the coolest thing this train can do. it holds 43,000 litres of water and 1,000 litres of special firefighting foam. also, a foam cannon! it can also create a curtain of protection, a mist of water that blankets around the train, providing a protective area from smoke and chemicals. so far, at the international fire training centre, i've be learning how to physically deal with fires but in large disasters, the co—ordinators are the ones who need to see the bigger picture and try

and control the entire scenario. it looks like the passengers are already evacuating so can we get a fire appliance to start extinguishing the fire over there? we really need to stop that by getting to the main body of the plane. this simulator allows me to take the role of incident commander. i've got crew commanders sat at each of these workstations. they are in charge of each fire appliance. myjob is to make assessments and call commands to them to try and deal with this fire which already looks quite serious, i have to say. the only carriage is on fire. it's the only carriage on fire? the port side is on fire. oh, wow. that was an explosion. something is telling me this plane won't be flying very soon. so as well as an incident commander, you can swap roles and become a nurse or paramedic or police officer as well. i can see how this is a really intense experience even though it is just a simulation that you really have

to have your wits about you to make sense of a very rapidly developing situation. now this is not the only kind of simulation used by first responders. kat hawkins has been looking at our virtual reality is being used to assess the aftermath of an emergency. i am at leicestershire fire and rescue, the first service in the country to invest in virtual reality. their hope is that money will be saved by replacing some of the expensive traditional training techniques with vr alternatives. i've seen the demo and the fire looks quite intense so i don't think it's going to be what i'm used to when it comes to virtual reality, which isjust having a nice time. let's see. all the scenes in the training

are scanned from the real world. for instance, this arson hotspot in leicester is a good reference for investigators looking for clues. it's the inside of a destroyed smoke alarm. ijust need to say, the environment is like i'm standing on ash. it feels very real. teleportation. oh, my gosh. there is a body down there. if you enjoy training, you get more out of it. it's already been proven by a study in the united states that if you train in a virtual reality environment, the retention rate is 75%. most of the talks i do on road safety, with powerpoint, we tend to make 5%. so you can see why we're looking at this because the training is going to be enhanced so much. if you want to skip 10 seconds forward, you can do it on the controller and skip forward, so you can fast—forward fire again. you remember from the scene you saw a minute ago, that tv monitor was completely melted.

and you can see how it physically affects thing that are not even burning yet. yes, and idea is how it stops, we don't show the people putting out the fire, but you get the ability straightaway to dive back in the scene and now you're in that same burn scene. yeah, seeing the impact of that fire is pretty remarkable. it moves quickly. it's an immersive experience and the ability to hold objects, to photograph them, to mark them. we don't often see the initial development of a fire so for fire behaviour and how a fire developed in a fire scene, it's useful for mine though as well, really, but from a forensic perspective and training new people in this field, i think it will be invaluable. part of the reason this experience feels so intense is the realism behind it.

for leicestershire fire and rescue, this was important, that they move away from gamification and into real life. they been working with a company called river to make this happen. the scenes are created using photogrammetry, both cameras and lasers photographing real—life 360—degree scenarios up to thousands of times. we've seen how fire services are using virtual reality, but what about other first responders? here at the defence science and technology laboratory, they are hard at work on how police might use virtual reality in theirtraining. number 7, ferguson house. caller report sounds a violent disturbance... i can see already. i don't think people would expect to police and virtual reality together. why is it so important that the police are interacting with technology in this way? you can replicate one—off events so a one—off event which could be a dangerous or hazardous environment, you can actually recreate one—off

and people would never, ever get the opportunity to rehearse that but in vr, we can, so we can give them that vehicle, give them that opportunity to do a one—off scenario and do it safely. oh, my gosh. 0k. i'm going to see if this woman is alive. she's obviously taken some pills. there is a heartbeat here. i can definitely see already how it would be used, in a way that a lot of games are, really, to open up your mind to possibilities around crime, why people may have committed criminal activities, those kind of questions are already there. that was more enjoyable than the fire one, i think. that shouldn't be my takeaway but i could go back into that world

whereas the fire scene, ijust wanted to get out. and that's it from the international fire training centre. i hope you found it as fascinating as we have. we're going to put a load more footage and photos from this place up on social media. don't forget, we live on facebook and twitter at @bbcclick but for now, thanks for watching and we will see you soon. hello there. the weather we had on saturday really sets the tone for the rest of the weekend. so good news if you like sunshine and you like heat.

it was a beautiful day for the beach on cornwall on saturday. i think there will be more beach weather in places. and the temperatures on saturday afternoon got very close to 31 degrees just to the west of london. 29 there for aberystwyth, making it the warmest august bank weekend on record for wales. but notice, northern scotland, it was a little bit cooler because of some extra cloud. you can see that rope of cloud on the satellite picture. it brought some rain across the far north west of the uk. that now clearing away northwards. but you can see some of this cloud also has been filtering in over recent hours into wales and the south—west. so these western areas will generally see some patches of cloud as we go through the day on sunday. further east, one or two mist patches early on. they should tend to clear and then we are going to see a lot of sunshine. more sunshine then we had during saturday across the north of scotland. although shetland could see some extra cloud rolling its way through the afternoon. as far as the temperatures go, well, 28 in glasgow,

32, possibly 32 and parts of the south—east. and it's going to feel increasingly humid as well. ans, actually, as we go through sunday night into the early hours of monday, that humidity could well cause some areas of mist and low cloud and fog to form in western areas. could be some quite poor visibility, actually, in parts of the west as we go into the first part of monday. further east, some clear spells and just the odd mist patch. and those temperatures 111—15 as we start the day. so through monday there will again be plenty of dry weather and some spells of sunshine. but remember, that early mist in the west, some of which could take a little while to clear. we'll see this frontal system getting quite close to northern ireland and western scotland. maybe some rain into the western isles and some of the western fringes could see the odd showers. turning cooler in the west by this stage. but still the high 20s or low 30s across parts of eastern england. things though will be changing as we head into the coming week. through monday night into tuesday, could see some showers on this little weather front here pushing eastwards, then a more meaningful front starts to make some progress into the west. that'll start to thicken up the cloud into parts

of northern ireland, western scotland, could see some splashes of rain here. the chance for the odd shower to break out elsewhere. if you do see a showers during tuesday could be heavy, could be thundery. but still the potential for some really warm weather, especially across eastern areas. however, wherever you are across the uk things will cool off as we head deeper into the week. there will be some outbreaks of rain around at times as well, particularly across the north and west.

welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is reged ahmad. our top stories: the french president calls for a de—escalation of trade tensions — at an informal dinner ahead of sunday's g7 talks. brazil's armed forces begin a major operation to fight fires in the amazon. world leaders will hold their first full day of talks on sunday at the g7 summit in biarritz. the french president said he'll do everything he can to get leaders to tackle the world's problems —

including the fires in the amazon.