Wildfires Threaten Bordeaux as Over 360,000 Evacuated Across France and Spain
More than 360,000 people have been forced to flee their homes across France and Spain as major wildfires continue to rage, with one blaze advancing towards the French city of Bordeaux and a critical heatwave expected to intensify conditions within days.
French President Emmanuel Macron is holding a crisis cabinet meeting this morning in Paris to coordinate the national response. The Gironde fire, which has already burned an estimated 42,000 hectares – an area roughly four times the size of Paris, remains the most urgent threat. Flames are currently about 11 kilometres (seven miles) from Bordeaux’s metropolitan area, home to 1.3 million people.
Local officials reported that the fire remained relatively stable overnight, but it is moving “erratically.” A Bordeaux city council spokesman told Sky News that a full evacuation of the city is “not scheduled” at present, though authorities remain highly vigilant. The airport hotel zone has already been evacuated. Smoke is filling parts of the city, and temporary housing schemes using private and business accommodation have been activated for those displaced.
Firefighters, numbering around 2,500 in Gironde alone and supported by aircraft and military resources, are racing to cut firebreaks and contain the blaze before temperatures rise sharply. A lieutenant-colonel in the French fire service warned that the effort could last “several weeks or even several months,” drawing comparisons with the 2022 Landiras fire that took years to fully extinguish. Nine additional firefighters were injured on Sunday, bringing the total treated to 84. Some 240 homes have been destroyed.
Mayor Jérôme Steffe of nearby Cestas described the fire as “of a size never seen before” and called the next 24 hours a “race against time” before a heatwave pushes temperatures towards 38°C later this week. Lighter winds overnight have given crews a window to advance containment efforts.
A second major fire further south in the Landes region has forced the evacuation of 36,000 people. In the Var department, officials accused arsonists of deliberately starting three new fires near where more than 1,000 firefighters are already battling another blaze.
In Spain, more than 116,000 people have been evacuated. Major fires continue in the central provinces of Ávila, Madrid and Toledo, where more than 45,000 hectares have burned, and in eastern Castellón, where authorities described one blaze as “out of control” and extremely difficult to extinguish. Satellite imagery showed smoke plumes stretching more than 100 kilometres west of Madrid. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Ávila to assess the damage.
Across both countries the fires are being driven by an exceptionally dry and hot summer. EU reinforcements, including firefighting aircraft from Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, are joining the effort. French authorities have also deployed 1,200 police officers to protect evacuated homes from looting.
The situation remains highly fluid. The coming hours and days will determine whether firefighters can stabilise the Gironde front before extreme heat returns and whether further large-scale evacuations become necessary around Bordeaux and other affected regions.
