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Associated Press

Massive forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 200,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic area on France’s Atlantic coast.
Dozens of firefighters were injured, authorities said in France, but no deaths were reported in either country.
Some 141,000 fled homes in the Gironde and Landes departments in France, the French interior ministry said. In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, the Spanish interior ministry said.
France’s Interior minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that the large wildfire that ravaged large swathes of land in southwestern France was now heading towards the city of Bordeaux.
Speaking to French television channel Tf1, Nunez said the wildfire that earlier in the day forced the evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula had swept across 140 sq km (54 square miles), with 110,000 people fleeing their homes in the Gironde region.

“We learned in the middle of the afternoon that, following the wind shift, it had become a large, self-sustaining fire that is extremely difficult to bring under control,” Nunez said.
“It is now moving east, towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. We are going to reorganise our response so we can fight it from the ground and prevent it from advancing towards Bordeaux.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has asked the Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to activate the government’s crisis response unit, and has instructed the armed forces to mobilise to provide the maximum possible reinforcement to the civilian emergency services.
Asked whether Bordeaux was under threat, Nunez said: “For the time being, no. We will, of course, do everything we can to protect it using ground resources, including requisitioned military assets and our firefighters.”
The blaze started on Wednesday near Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast. Located just 60km (37 miles) from Bordeaux, the peninsula normally offers stunning landscapes and sandy beaches as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts. Some people fled the flames by boat.
A separate wildfire broke out in Landes, causing 31,000 evacuations, while both France and Spain asked fellow European Union members for help.
“It’s quite impressive and even frightening,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Ares. “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 holiday resorts on Thursday, but that number exploded on Friday as the fires raged out of control.

Local authorities in the Gironde department said 53 homes and a campsite had 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.
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 sq km (9.7 square miles) of land further south down the coast. It was not contained and strong winds hampered the work of firefighters.
Authorities believe the cause of both fires was accidental.
Macron said France would 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 were each sending two Canadair water-dumping planes.
In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time as the blazes in Madrid and the nearby province of Avila prompted the evacuation of some 60,000 people from towns west of the capital.
The fires are being fanned by a heatwave with temperatures expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain.
The two major fires near Madrid merged into one single blaze that had quickly charred 30 sq km (11.5 square miles) by Friday afternoon. Regional President Isabel Diaz-Ayuso called it the worst in Madrid’s history.

Francisco Martin, 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.
Martin 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 Avila, less than two hours northwest of Madrid, had consumed 90 sq km (34 square miles). Spain’s Civil Guard arrested one man and is investigating another for allegedly having used heavy machinery in an area where it was prohibited for 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 Martinez, the mayor of Burgohondo, whose residents were preventively evacuated in Avila, 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 fire trucks 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 said before he and his neighbours were evacuated from the village of Chapineria, located less than an hour’s drive west of Madrid.
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 sq km (120 square miles) over the last week. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the country’s deadliest fire in recent memory.
Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that 1,140 sq km (440 square miles) had 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.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called on Wednesday for a pact between political parties to fight climate change that he said was 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 Raul Quilez said that besides the impact of climate change, Spain’s rural areas had become more exposed to fires with the abandonment of farmlands that traditionally provided buffer zones around villages. Now, trees and undergrowth often reach right to homes, putting them in harm’s way, he said.
“That makes a perfect cocktail for this type of fires,” Quilez said by phone from Valencia, where he works as an analyst for regional firefighters.


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Raging wildfires in France and Spain force over 200,000 to flee

A French Civil Security Canadair CL-415 aircraft flies past flames burning a forest surrounding Cotignac, southeastern France, on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Smoke from wildfires spreading on the Cap Ferret peninsula is seen from the Arcachon Bay in southwestern France on Friday. Photo: EPA

Residents help firefighters battle a wildfire in the Cebreros area, near Avila, on Friday. Photo: AFP

Birds fly through clouds of smoke above a herd of goats during a wildfire near Madrid, Spain, on Thursday. Photo: via dpa

A firefighting helicopter drops water outside the village of El Tiemblo during a wildfire affecting Castilla y Leon province, Spain, on Friday. Photo: Reuters

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Smoke from wildfires in Canada blankets the Chicago metropolitan area on Friday. Photo: AFP

A cat crosses a street as smoke from wild fires fills the night air in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Friday. Photo: The Canadian Press/AP

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks in front of a live map of smoke movement during a press conference in Toronto on Friday. Photo: The Canadian Press/AP

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A view from Milly-la-Foret shows smoke rising from a wildfire in the Fontainebleau forest near Paris. Photo: Reuters

Firefighting planes fly over the church of Noisy-sur-Ecole, amid a wildfire affecting the area near Fontainebleau, France. Photo: Reuters

A firefighter battles flames in the Fontainebleau forest. Photo: Reuters

A fire truck sprays fire retardant into the Fontainebleau forest. Photo: AFP

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Smoke rises as a wildfire burns in Darwen, Britain, on Sunday. Photo: Andrew Robinson via Reuters

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Spain has declared its first national emergency for wildfires, while France is mobilising its armed forces to help with the response


Spain has declared its first national emergency for wildfires, while France is mobilising its armed forces to help with the response.


Raging wildfires in France and Spain force over 200,000 to flee

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Spain has declared its first national emergency for wildfires, while France is mobilising its armed forces to help with the response

Spain has declared its first national emergency for wildfires, while France is mobilising its armed forces to help with the response