Wildfires force mass evacuations as France and Spain battle heatwave fuels

Incinerated homes and scorched streets greeted residents returning to communities outside Bordeaux as firefighters fought to keep a blaze that had spread over 11,000 hectares, or 27,000 acres, from reaching the city. French authorities ordered almost 60,000 people out near Bordeaux, while the fire in Gironde had already driven more than 14,000 evacuations there and sent smoke across the southwest.

The Bordeaux Exhibition Center became a temporary shelter for people fleeing the flames, and evacuees there described waiting to learn whether their homes had survived. The smell of smoke reached the center as it housed wildfire evacuees, turning an exhibition hall into an emergency dormitory for families from Gironde, Landes and nearby towns such as Lege-Cap-Ferret, Arcachon and Marcheprime. Firefighters were still trying to keep the blaze away from Bordeaux as the city came under direct threat.

France was bracing for a fourth major heatwave while crews tackled the fire, and the response widened as President Emmanuel Macron mobilized the military to help. France deployed 2,500 firefighters, backed by 18 planes and helicopters. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the fire a "life of its own" and described the situation as "unprecedented."

On July 10, wildfires in southern Spain killed 12 people and left 23 missing, and on July 24 a man died in a Spanish wildfire near Valencia. Extreme heat and strong winds intensified the blazes, while Spanish officials described a major wildfire near Madrid as beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain.

More than 220,000 people had been evacuated in France and Spain, with around 200,000 of them in southwestern France’s Gironde and Landes regions. France had burned more than 242,000 acres.