Arcachon (France), Jul 24: Large forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 92,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast.
Dozens of firefighters were injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country.
Some 125 square kilometres (48 square miles) have been consumed by the blaze that has raged since Wednesday near Cap Ferret. Located just 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bordeaux, the peninsula normally offers stunning landscapes and sandy beaches as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts.
About 67,000 residents in France escaped a larger area as authorities ordered additional evacuations further south after a separate wildfire broke out. Both France and Spain have asked fellow European Union members for help.
“It’s quite impressive and even frightening,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.”
More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The new evacuations were carried out by road, with boat shuttles provided for people who could not travel by their own means.
Local authorities in the Gironde department said 53 homes and a campsite have been ravaged by flames, adding that 42 firefighters were injured. Around 1,500 people who fled the peninsula arrived by sea in the city of Arcachon, some aboard small water taxis and others on larger boats.
The EU comes to the rescue
Hundreds of French firefighters have been deployed, and additional ground and aerial reinforcements were sent on Friday to tackle the blaze. Meanwhile, another major wildfire destroyed 25 square kilometres of land further south down the coast. It remained uncontained, and strong winds hampered the work of firefighters.
Authorities believe the cause of both fires was accidental. Some 44,000 people have been evacuated in Gironde, and 23,000 in the Landes.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France will receive EU reinforcements, including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Italy and Greece are each sending two Canadair water-dumping aeroplanes.
Spain struggles to tackle multiple fires amid a heatwave
In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time as the blazes in Madrid and the nearby province of Ávila prompted the evacuation of some 25,000 people from towns west of the capital.
The fires are being fanned by a heat wave with temperatures expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain.
The two major fires near Madrid merged into one single blaze that had quickly charred 30 square kilometres (11.5 square miles) by Friday afternoon. Regional President Isabel Díaz-Ayuso called it the worst in Madrid’s history.
Francisco Martín, the central government representative for the region of Madrid, said that another 20,000 people had been ordered to shelter at home in towns west of the capital. Martín said more evacuations could be coming and that the priority now was to protect the town of San Lorenzo, the home of the Escorial, Philip II’s 16th-century royal palace and monastery.
Meanwhile, a blaze in Ávila, less than two hours northwest of Madrid, had consumed 90 square kilometres (34 square miles), causing another 1,500 people to flee. Spain’s Civil Guard arrested one man and is investigating another for allegedly having used heavy machinery in an area where it was prohibited due to fire risk. Police believe a spark ignited the fire on Thursday.
“In my 60 years, I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,” Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo, whose residents were evacuated in Ávila, told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE.
Spanish television showed video taken by retreating residents of walls of flames topped by long plumes of smoke advancing through woods and scrublands. High winds and hilly terrain complicated efforts by firefighters, who combated the blazes with firetrucks and bulldozers.
“All around the town was smoke and fire. I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa told The Associated Press before he and his neighbours were evacuated from the village of Chapinería, located less than an hour’s drive west of Madrid.
Strong winds complicate efforts
In one week, Spain has had the worst fires on record for both the regions of Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.
Firefighters were still trying to extinguish Spain’s second-largest ever fire in the Guadalajara province of Castilla-La Mancha after it had destroyed some 320 square kilometres (120 square miles) over the last week. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.
Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen 1,140 square kilometres (440 square miles) already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025. There were nine other serious fires in other parts of Spain active on Friday.
Sánchez called on Wednesday for a pact between political parties to fight climate change that he said is key to adapting to a more fire-prone climate. Spain has experienced record temperatures in recent summers and forest fires of increasing violence.
Wildfire analyst Raúl Quílez said that, besides the impact of climate change, Spain’s rural areas have become more exposed to fires with the abandonment of farmlands that traditionally provided buffer zones around villages. Now, he said, trees and undergrowth often reach right to homes, putting them in harm’s way.
“That makes a perfect cocktail for this type of fire,” Quílez told the AP by phone from Valencia, where he works as an analyst for regional firefighters.
Arsonists abuse cats to set fires in Sicily
In Italy, as wildfires ravaged Sicily and other areas, civil protection officials said arsonists were behind some of the blazes and were using cats to help propagate the flames.
The head of the civil protection agency in Calabria, Domenico Costarella, said arsonists had attached rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of cats and then set them loose in fields to spread the fire.
Fueled by temperatures that have topped 40 C (104 F), low humidity and winds, the blazes have forced scattered evacuations and were blamed for the death of a firefighter responding to a fire in Caltanissetta.
Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires. (PTI)
