Manuel Ausloos and David Latona
Bordeaux/Madrid: Wildfires advanced toward the outskirts of the historic French city of Bordeaux at the heart of the country’s winelands on Sunday as France and Spain battled blazes that have already forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
About 220,000 people have been evacuated in France, while in Spain more than 75,000 people have had to leave their homes and around 30,000 more were ordered to shelter in place, authorities said.
In France, fires have ravaged the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast, a popular tourist destination, and spread through areas surrounding Bordeaux, where firefighters were trying to prevent the flames from reaching the regional capital.
“The fire is about 15 kilometres away from the entry points to the main city,” Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave said on Sunday, while Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X that the situation remained “difficult”.
Footage released by French police showed officers knocking on doors at night in the municipalities of Marcheprime and Cestas to evacuate homes one by one.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited fire-hit areas in Avila, one of three central provinces affected by major blazes alongside Madrid and Toledo, where more than 45,000 hectares (111,000 acres) have burned.
Spain battles multiple blazes
A separate blaze in Spain’s eastern Castellon province has ravaged more than 4300 hectares, regional authorities said.
“The fire is out of control, it’s very difficult to extinguish from a technical standpoint, especially because of the adverse weather conditions that will continue throughout the day,” the regional leader of Valencia, Juanfran Perez, told reporters near the site.
The wildfire has entered the Sierra de Espadan natural park, which contains large forests of pine trees and cork oaks.
The fires are the latest disasters linked to prolonged drought and successive heatwaves that scientists say have been intensified by climate change.
In both Bordeaux and Avila, July high temperatures have averaged 32 degrees Celsius, almost 6 degrees above the month’s normal high between 1961 and 1990, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor.
International aid mobilised
Under the European Union’s civil protection mechanism, Greece and Italy have each sent two Canadair firefighting aircraft to Spain, while Portugal has deployed more than 100 military personnel along with equipment.
Two more planes will arrive “as soon as possible” from Turkey, the Spanish interior ministry said on X.
Sanchez said his government would on Tuesday declare a civil protection emergency for the central provinces plagued by the wildfires, unlocking additional recovery funding.
More than 150,000 hectares have burned across Spain since January, he said, six times the area destroyed during the same period last year.
While wildfires have long been a feature of Spain’s summers, Sanchez said their growing scale and intensity, fuelled by increasingly extreme weather, required policies grounded in climate science.
More fires in Scotland, Italy
In the highlands of Scotland, as many as 500 firefighters have been dealing with a large blaze within Cairngorms National Park since July 15.
Residents of the village of Nethy Bridge, who were evacuated on Friday evening after a change in weather conditions, were allowed to return to their homes late on Saturday.
In Italy, several bushfires forced the closure of a southern section of the Rome ring road as well as a motorway leading into the capital, causing major traffic disruption.
In Italy’s southern Puglia region, tourists were evacuated from seaside resorts due to a large wildfire in the Gargano area, the national fire department said. Some were taken away by sea by the coast guard, the ANSA news agency added.
Pope Leo, speaking from his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo outside Rome, offered spiritual support.
“In light of the devastating wildfires that have affected various areas of France and Spain in recent days, I wish to express my solidarity and closeness, and I invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the rescue workers engaged in relief efforts,” he said.
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