Europe wildfires: ‘Difficult hours lie ahead’ in battle to contain fires, says Pedro Sanchez as more than 300,000 flee homes in France and Spain
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- France has evacuated more than 220,000 people from the Gironde wildfire, with about 55,000 ordered to leave villages around Bordeaux overnight; the fire has burned 42,000 hectares and forced closure of 60km of the A63 highway to the Spanish border.
- Spain has evacuated over 90,000 people from regions around Madrid, Ávila, and Toledo, with 1,200 soldiers from Spain's Military Emergencies Unit (UME) and 400 vehicles tackling three fires — the national emergency declaration is Spain's first ever for wildfires.
- Pedro Sánchez warned of "difficult hours ahead" while visiting Ávila, noting overnight progress in fire containment and calling for a national agreement to address the climate crisis.
- Lt Col Alfonso Arribas of Spain's UME said major areas of the Madrid fire have been "contained and cooled down," with no further evacuations planned before midday and significant progress made across the fire's perimeter.
- France's interior minister Laurent Nuñez described the Gironde situation as "very unfavourable," with 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel, and 1,200 police deployed; the fire became "extremely virulent" overnight, "generating its own wind."
- Bordeaux city council is studying scenarios for total evacuation of the city, with mayor Thomas Cazenave describing the fire as "at the gates of the metropolitan area"; France's interior minister called the response "probably" the biggest peacetime evacuation the country has ever seen.
- Spain's environment ministry reports 152,678 hectares of forest land burned in 2026 so far versus 24,133 in the same period of 2025, with 32 major forest fires recorded this year compared to seven last year.
Why it matters: Spain has triggered its first-ever national emergency for wildfires and France is running what its interior minister called "probably" its largest peacetime evacuation ever, with 220,000 displaced around Bordeaux alone. Spain has burned 152,678 hectares of forest this year so far — more than six times the 24,133 burned in the same 2025 period.
