Wildfires near Bordeaux force evacuations as France deploys military aircraft

France deployed an Airbus A400M military transport aircraft with a 22-tonne firefighting system after flames in Gironde spread toward Bordeaux and forced evacuations in suburbs outside the city. By July 25, more than 42,000 hectares had burned in southwestern France, and the fire was advancing through coastal forest zones near Lege-Cap-Ferret, Lacanau, Saumos and Sainte-Hélène.

The region contains plants that handle sophisticated technologies and hazardous materials. A fast-moving fire can disrupt aerospace and defense supply chains as well as local transport, utilities and shift work. Evacuation around that industrial belt raises worker-safety risks when smoke, embers and road closures collide with facilities that cannot easily shut down or move.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu ordered the armed forces to help battle the fires and directed the A400M deployment. The aircraft was fitted with a 22-tonne system designed to dump flame retardant, giving Paris an air option alongside ground crews as the fire front widened. The Bordeaux-area blaze moved closer to the city, while wildfires in Spain intensified the regional crisis and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee.

In 2022, a raging wildfire around Bordeaux displaced thousands, and a 2025 study on Gironde and Les Landes built a historical database of forest-fire incidents from 1989 to 2022. The landscape surrounding Bordeaux has long combined dry forests, strong winds and dense settlements.