Pedro Sánchez says Spain is suffering effects of climate crisis as firefighters battle wildfires in France
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- Wildfires across France and Spain have forced approximately 375,000 evacuations — 260,000 in France and 116,000 in Spain — and Spain's environment ministry recorded 32 major fires covering 152,678 hectares in 2026 versus just 7 fires over 24,133 hectares in the same period of 2025.
- The Gironde wildfire near Bordeaux has consumed 42,000 hectares, an area four times the size of Paris, and formed a pyrocumulonimbus — a fire-generated thunderstorm that "creates its own wind, with whirlwinds, becoming erratic and uncontrollable" — a phenomenon never before documented in France, per the National Firefighters Federation's Lt Col Éric Brocardi.
- Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, speaking at an advance command post west of Madrid, said the country is facing "some difficult hours" and warned that "the entire Iberian peninsula is suffering the effects of the climate emergency in a very specific way," citing fires, storms and heavy snowfalls.
- A new blaze near València has a 21km perimeter and forced at least 15,000 evacuations, with regional president Juanfran Pérez Llorca saying the fire is "beyond our capacity to extinguish"; one man was found dead in a ravine in the Valencian town of Manises.
- French authorities have deployed roughly 2,500 firefighters (including a Swiss team), 1,500 military personnel and 1,200 police to Gironde; at least 240 homes have been destroyed, police made three arrests for reckless fire-starters, and Bordeaux's mayor requested an economic crisis plan for the region.
- EU crisis management commissioner Hadja Lahbib told the BBC that European wildfire damage is likely to exceed records after one million hectares burned last summer, noting the 2026 season "started earlier in the year."
Why it matters: Spain's major-fire count has risen more than fourfold and burned area roughly sixfold versus the same 2025 window, while the appearance of a pyrocumulonimbus in France — previously seen only in Australia and Canada — marks a new category of wildfire behavior reaching Europe. With 240 homes destroyed, care-home residents evacuated, and Bordeaux's mayor requesting an economic crisis plan, the immediate material stakes span housing, tourism and public finances.
