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Published : 24 Jul 2026, 09:32 PM
Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires in southwest France by car and boat on Friday and Spain declared a national emergency as huge blazes merged outside Madrid and searing heat left tinder-dry conditions across Europe.
French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourism hotspot on the Atlantic Coast. Two fires merged outside Madrid, and a third was on the verge of joining them, government officials said.
"I had to run from my house. There was a ball of fire. If I'd taken five more minutes, it would have wiped us out," evacuee Enrique Martin said in a shelter in Cebreros, west of Madrid.
Both France and Spain sought help from the European Union as the blazes strained firefighting and other emergency services. The national emergency - the first ever issued over a wildfire in Spain - opened up federal funding to tackle the crisis.
"This is the worst wildfire in our region's history," Madrid's regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said after telling reporters the fires had merged. "It's the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren't letting up."
The Clouds Became 'Darker and Darker'
In southwest France, authorities sent boats to help the evacuation and a total of about 63,000 people, many of them tourists, were told to get out as two major, separate fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.
"From our home, we had a view of the fires ... We could see the clouds becoming darker and darker," said Yoan Urien, who left late on Thursday after police told everyone in his neighbourhood in the town of Biscarrosse to leave.
"I was able to find somewhere to take shelter with my pets, but ... it's quite a shock," the 26-year-old told Reuters.
The other major fire, which began in nearby Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to cut off the only road out of the peninsula and is the largest so far this season in France, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told local television.
It has torn through more than 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of forest and burned 80 homes, completely destroying about 50 of them, he said.
"It breaks my heart. Because it's such a pleasant place to live, seeing it go up in smoke is truly sad," said family caregiver Corinne Paillaube.
"It's totally apocalyptic," said Ambre Dubos, from the nearby Landes region.
Devastating Fire Season
In Spain, more than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate from towns in the mountains west of Madrid, as more than 2,000 personnel and 10 aircraft struggled in vain to prevent the fires converging, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
A third fire in Avila province was on the verge or may have already merged with the two in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters.
The area west of Madrid, where many residents from the capital have second homes, is densely populated. In just one development 43 homes had been destroyed, Diaz Ayuso said.
That played a role in the government decision to declare a national emergency, Grande-Marlaska said.
It is the second consecutive year that Spain has faced a particularly destructive fire season.
More than 29 major fires have broken out in Spain so far this year, damaging a surface area five times greater than at the same stage in 2025, when a record area was destroyed, Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said in a social media post.
Heat Hits Crops, Nuclear Plant Cooling
Wildfires have burnt more land in Europe already this year than the annual average in the past two decades, data shows as the world's fastest-warming continent has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves so far this year.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms.
Greece was sending two CL-415 firefighting aircraft to Madrid and will operate across the area of Toledo, the Greek civil protection ministry said.
Croatia said it sent on Friday a Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft with two crews and 11 Croatian army technical staff to help France battle fires.
After a short reprieve over the weekend, average temperatures in France are expected to rise sharply again next week, according to official weather forecaster Meteo France. The high temperatures are expected to warm French rivers that are used to cool nuclear reactors and could lead to further restrictions, as the reactors reduce output to comply with environmental protection measures.The Golfech 2 nuclear reactor in southern France has remained offline since Jul 7 due to heat-related restrictions, operator EDF's data showed.
Weeks of hot weather are also taking a toll on the condition of the maize crop in France.
