Ellen McCurdy had no time to think as wildfires spread across the Mijas hillsThe hills are near Malaga, a popular tourist area in southern Spain.. "We just grabbed a few essentials and just ran really, and by that stage everybody along the street was on the move... there were a lot of ambulances and fire engines."

Ellen was not the only one to be evacuated - more than 3,200 left their homes. And Spain is not the only country to have witnessed such scenes.

In southwestern France, where fires have burned 26,000 acres of land, more than 16,000 people have been told to flee. Croatia, Turkey and Greece have also been hit by wildfires feeding on dried-out vegetation.

The heatwave engulfing the Mediterranean is reckoned to have killed over 1,000 people in Portugal and Spain. InfrastructureThe basic systems and services that a country needs to keep it going. has also been affected, with railway lines buckling and tarmac on roads melting. The temperature in Portugal recently reached 47C.

Even the Alps have been affected, with mountaineers being advised not to climb Mont Blanc because of the danger of rock falls.

For writers and film-makers, however, such extraordinary conditions are a gift, creating drama and intensifying the atmosphere of their tales. "I love England in a heat wave," says one of the characters in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. "It's a different country. All the rules change."

The literary critic Alexandra Harris agrees. "The weather really is a mind-altering phenomenon: we find we are not quite ourselves. Or hidden selves come flashing out. The high pressure bears in on us: we all feel the intensity of the moment."

Another critic, Lauren Bravo, refers to the "lawlessness and sun-addled freedom" a heatwave brings, while the author Ayisha MalikHer novel This Green and Pleasant Land opens on a very hot August day. observes that "to swelter is to feel oppressed - cross, put-out and harassed".

"It's the simplest way to create conflict and tension without even introducing a character."

In F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby, the intensity of sexual conflict is increased by the heat. When Daisy Buchanan tells Gatsby, "You always look so cool", she is publicly declaring her love for him. It is on the same unbearably hot day that her husband Tom finally confronts Gatsby.

There are similar tensions in Tennessee WilliamsAn American writer whose other plays include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' great play A Streetcar Named Desire, with the characters' nerves fraying in a sultry New Orleans apartment. In LP Hartley's novel The Go-Between, the formal clothes worn during a sweltering EdwardianOfficially the period between 1901 and 1910, when Edward VII ruled Britain, though it is sometimes used to refer to the time up until World War One. summer emphasise the restrictive attitudes of the time.

Some of cinema's greatest thrillers use high temperatures as a plot device. Roman Polanski's Chinatown revolves around a Californian water shortage. In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, the main character observes his neighbours through their open windows during a heatwave.

The titles of Dog Day Afternoon and In the Heat of the Night reflect the importance of the weather in the movies concerned. But, as the characters of New York movie In The HeightsBased on Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical, it is set in an area where many immigrants from the Dominican Republic live. demonstrate, dancing their way through the sweaty Manhattan summer, heatwaves can create a sense of joyous freedom too.

Yes: It creates a sense of things not being as they normally are, it prompts people to behave in extreme and desperate ways, and it overthrows conventions about how we live our day-to-day lives.   

No: There are equally good plots created by cold conditions, particularly snow: Agatha Christie's record-breaking play The Mousetrap and her novel Murder on the Orient Express both rely on them.    

Or... A great writer or filmmaker can find inspiration in any kind of weather or time of year. Spring is ideal for plots about renewal or young love; autumn is perfect for ones about ageing or regret.