More than 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Spain and France as wildfires continue to burn out of control, authorities have confirmed. In Spain, an estimated 70,000 people were evacuated from central regions, while in France around 197,000 people, including tens of thousands from the Bordeaux wine region, left their homes.
The Spanish government declared a national emergency for the first time in response to a wildfire, and France’s interior minister described the evacuations as “probably” the largest peacetime evacuation in the country’s history. Hundreds of firefighters are battling the blazes, fuelled by persistent heatwaves and high winds, which have caused fires to merge in Spain and threaten the outskirts of Bordeaux.
French authorities deployed a military Airbus A400M Atlas cargo plane to join 18 other aircraft fighting the flames in the Gironde region. In addition, 1,500 soldiers have been called in to assist, and 1.5 million face masks have been distributed to protect against smoke inhalation. Firefighters have dug trenches and used retardants as winds push the fire towards Bordeaux, now only 20 miles west of the city.
In Spain, the health minister warned residents of Madrid not to go outside due to poor air quality, advising masks if outdoors. A separate fire in Valencia caused the death of a man found in a car. Back-to-back heatwaves have dried out forests, with Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, noting that fires this year had consumed 130,000 hectares, a third above the annual average. France has seen a “historic record” of 98,000 hectares burned.
Cooler weather on Saturday provided a brief respite, but Sánchez cautioned that wind conditions remain unpredictable. European Union countries including Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovakia have sent aid and aircraft. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promised further assistance.
