A wildfire raging in southwestern France forced the evacuation of 55,000 people overnight on Sunday, bringing the number of people from their homes to 220,000 in one area alone as the flames moved closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Neighboring Spain is responsible for its evacuation from the fire on the country’s east coast.
Winds and storms, as well as arid conditions have made efforts difficult to slow the spread of a large fire that has burned out of control since midweek in the Gironde region of France, where Bordeaux is located. Authorities issued evacuation orders overnight in five other areas southwest of the historic city.
“The situation is not good at all,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said after what he described as “another difficult night” for firefighters fighting around the clock as the blaze burned an area four times the size of Paris.
“The fire was again very strong and unpredictable, generating its own wind and advancing in an irregular direction towards the city of Bordeaux,” Nuñez told X.
“There was peace at the end of the night,” added the minister.
Fast-moving wildfires in Spain and France are causing widespread damage as thousands of people are forced to evacuate during the tourist season.
The Pope calls for prayers
At the end of his Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Leo spoke of the “devastating wildfires” in France and Spain and said: “I express my solidarity and invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the work of rescue workers.”
By Sunday morning, about 42,000 hectares had burned in the Gironde, the regional government said, with most of the forests and desert areas dry due to the heat wave. That is seven times the area of the island of Manhattan and four times the size of Paris.
Firefighters raced in trucks to battle the blaze and water-dropping planes and paraphernalia circled in the smoke-filled air. Farmers delivered water in large tanks to the firefighters so that they could fight the flames without interruption.
“This allows firefighters to focus on the fire,” said Theo Hernandez, a wine grower. “It is very powerful, very dangerous, it is spreading everywhere…. We hope it will stop soon.”
The number of combined firefighters has grown to 2,500, supported by 18 planes and helicopters, including from other European countries, Nuñez said. The army was also called.
The large A400M military cargo plane converted for firefighting will be used again, the minister said. On Saturday, it descended on dry, fire-prone forests to drop a long plume of ochre-colored retardant.
The Gironde region said 75 firefighters were treated for injuries and the fire destroyed 240 homes.
The fire is crawling towards Bordeaux
Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave described the fire as “at the gates of the great city,” 15 kilometers away from the nearest point. The governor of Gironde has ordered the closure of part of the main road leading into and out of the city.
But Cazenave said a Bordeaux release is not on the cards yet. The city has a population of 268,000.
Bordeaux has turned a large exhibition center into an emergency shelter, providing camp beds and food for thousands of people, including hundreds of elderly people who have been taken out of care homes.
A second wildfire in the southern Landes region also forced the evacuation of 36,000 people this week, bringing the number of people displaced in southwestern France to more than 250,000.
Nunez said that 550 firefighters were still fighting the fire on Sunday.
Fire crews have also been battling a separate fire in the Var region of southern France in the Mediterranean. About 3,000 people were evacuated from there.
Tens of thousands are also leaving Spain
In Spain, wildfires raged in Madrid. The evacuation of the fire was carried out on Sunday in the region of Valencia. A man died in a wildfire in Manises, a suburb of Valencia, that raged for four hours on Saturday, the local government said, marking Spain’s first recorded death in recent fires.
“We still have difficult hours,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Sunday, but the night “was very good in terms of controlling the flames.”
76,000 people have been evacuated from Spain and another 30,000 are under house arrest, according to new government figures on Sunday.
Those fleeing are worried about what they will find once they are allowed to return.
“It seemed like an apocalypse. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocío Domínguez, who was out with his dog, Simba, in Chapinería, west of Madrid.
“We don’t know when we arrive in the city, we will burn part of the house or we will repair it completely or we will not have it,” he said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”
