Reports: Heat melts runway at UK’s largest air force base; residents cover windows with foil

LONDON - It was so hot in the United Kingdom on Monday that the runway at the country’s largest air force base "melted," according to a report.Sky News reported that flights were halted at Royal Air Force Base Brize Norton in Oxfordshire because the "runway had melted." The report came as temperatures soared to 95 degrees at the base Monday afternoon.HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER ON YOUR TVA tweet from the Ministry of Defence Press Office said that aircraft are using alternative airfields as part of a "long-established plan" to deal with extreme temperatures.According to ASI, a company in the UK that sells products to maintain asphalt surfaces, the air base uses an asphalt runway.

Binders in asphalt are known to liquefy during extreme heat, as was the case in Texas during a heat wave in late June.Officials at London's Luton Airport said in a tweet that they are working to repair a defect in the runway resulting from the high temperatures.

Operations have been paused in the meantime.The U.K. Met Office issued the country’s first red alert for extreme heat last week ahead of the sizzling weather.

It includes cities such as London, Cambridge, Leicester, Nottingham and Manchester.Amber extreme heat alerts, the second-highest level on the country’s weather alert scale, stretch as far north as Perth and Edinburgh and as far south as Plymouth and Brighton.Record high temperatures have already been reported in Wales, where Hawarden hit a provisionally high temperature of 99 degrees, according to the U.K.