French authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 60,000 people near Bordeaux Saturday, pushing the total number evacuated across France and Spain past 220,000, as wildfires fueled by extreme heat and drought continue spreading across both countries.
Roughly 200,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France’s Gironde and Landes regions, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to mobilize the military. Meanwhile, Spanish officials said a fire near Madrid has grown beyond firefighters capacity to contain after three separate blazes merged west of the capital.
Spain’s government declared a national emergency, with 25,000 people ordered to evacuate and nearly 40,000 told to remain indoors. Madrid’s regional president, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, called it the worst fire in the region’s history, describing a combination of extreme heat strong winds and merging fire fronts.
Madrid emergency management chief Carlos Novillo said the fire had reached a point where direct firefighting efforts were no longer possible, forcing crews to shift to defensive measures instead.
Officials said flames spread roughly 12 miles in under 30 minutes in Avila province, an advance one local mayor described as horrific, so far about 6,000 hectares have burned in the Madrid region, with the Avila fire consuming nearly 9,000 hectares nearly eight municipalities have been evacuated entirely.
One 86 year old evacuee described the fire as unstoppable once it takes hold, saying those who try to confront it directly get overwhelmed by it.
In France, officials evacuated four towns near Bordeaux as a precaution, affecting more than 58,000 residents. The Gironde fire, described by a local official as an “XXL fire,” has burned more than 19,000 hectares and destroyed roughly 80 homes. The entire Cap Ferret peninsula was evacuated, with hundreds escaping by boat.
France’s interior minister said the fire’s intensity was unlike anything previously recorded in the region, noting that about 50 firefighters have been injured. A separate fire near Biscarrosse forced more than 23,000 additional evacuations.
The European Union has deployed aircraft and helicopters to support firefighting efforts in both countries. According to EU climate data, Europe is warming more than twice as fast as the global average, contributing to drier vegetation and more intense wildfires across the region this year.
