By Elizabeth Howcroft and Sergio Leon
BORDEAUX, France/MADRID, July 25 (Reuters) – Wildfires on the coast of southwestern France moved inland towards Bordeaux on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of thousands in the city’s suburbs, while in neighbouring Spain high winds complicated efforts to fight a massive blaze near Madrid.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in both countries because of those fires, the latest natural disasters linked to sustained dry spells and successive heatwaves that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change.
“The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote on X.
“We expect a fight that will be long and very difficult,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez later told reporters, adding that Bordeaux airport had been closed.
France’s armed forces have been drafted in to help overwhelmed fire brigades, while Spain has declared its first national emergency over a wildfire, because of three blazes, two of which merged on Friday.
Spain’s Civil Protection Service said it was expecting four more water-dumping aircraft to arrive on Saturday, two from Italy and two from Greece – sent as part of a European Union response to the emergency. Firefighting aircraft from the Netherlands and Portugal have already been deployed in Spain.
High winds have stoked and spread the fires in both countries. The coast near Bordeaux is a tourist hotspot which includes pine forests that can catch fire easily. The city is also famous for its eponymous wines, made by nearby vineyards.
Roughly 197,000 people have so far been evacuated from the Gironde and Landes regions close to Bordeaux since the wildfires broke out there this week. More than 63,000 people have been evacuated or confined to their homes in Spain because of the three major fires there.
French Interior Minister Nunez said the fire was around 30 km (19 miles) from Bordeaux, adding that the situation was calmer on Saturday but that winds were expected to pick up again in the afternoon. The government has warned against road or rail travel to the area.
SPAIN WARNS AGAINST GOING OUTSIDE
Many Madrid residents have second homes in the densely populated area west of the capital but still in the region of Madrid where the two fires merged.
A third fire in Avila province has threatened to merge with the two in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters on Friday.
Esteban Carrasco, owner of the Monasterio de Pelayos campsite west of the capital, told national broadcaster TVE about 30 mobile homes were burned down when the fire reached the site on Friday. About 200 campers from “humble backgrounds” had to evacuate, he added.
“It was a horrific disaster,” he said as he showed how mobile homes on one side of a road were destroyed while on the other side they escaped untouched. No one was injured.
While smoke filled the air in Madrid on Friday, it was clearer on Saturday but Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia still warned against outdoor activities.
“Avoid physical activity and staying outdoors. If you go outdoors and there is smoke or ash, use a mask,” she said on X.
(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Ana Beltran in Madrid, Graham Keeley in BarcelonaWriting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Susan Fenton)
