Wildfires: France orders evacuation of tourist hotspot as Spain declares national emergency
Severe wildfires in France and Spain have led to mass evacuations and the declaration of a national emergency in Spain. Authorities are struggling to contain the blazes amid record-breaking temperatures and dry conditions.
Why it matters
The event underscores the increasing frequency and severity of climate-driven natural disasters in Europe.
More than 90,000 people have fled huge wildfires in Spain and France as Madrid declared a national emergency and French authorities ordered the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots.
Authorities in southwest France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village” in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 12,500 hectares of forest.
Spain’s government declared its first national emergency for a wildfire as two large blazes merged into one outside Madrid and a third was on the verge of joining them, amid searing heat and tinder-dry conditions across much of southern Europe.
Both countries sought EU help. “This is the worst wildfire in our region’s history,” said Madrid’s regional leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, describing “an unprecedented situation: a perfect storm of extremely high temperatures and relentless winds”.
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