Thousands flee wildfires in France and Spain as temperatures reach extreme levels in southern Europe
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- Wildfires in France and Spain have forced about 30,000 people to flee as extreme heat grips southern Europe, with a marine heatwave scalding 80% of the Mediterranean Sea's surface and daily anomalies running 5°C above the 1991–2020 average.
- France requested activation of the EU's civil protection mechanism, with President Emmanuel Macron announcing reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor planes, and two heavy Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
- France's Gironde wildfire, which broke out near Saumos about 40km west of Bordeaux, burned more than 3,700 hectares in just over 24 hours, forced 18,800 evacuations including tourists from campsites, and had 800 firefighters plus four water-bombing planes deployed against an "erratic" blaze described as gaining "very significant force."
- Spain declared a national emergency in the Madrid region and the province of Avila, with roughly 10,000 evacuated around Madrid and the military emergency unit taking charge of the response as flames hit areas including Aldea del Fresno, Avila, León, Toledo, and a 32,000-hectare fire in Guadalajara.
- Spain's heat smashed records: 44.7°C in Cieza, Murcia, and July all-time highs above 42°C in Albacete, Ávila, and Teruel, while 125,000 hectares have already burned this year — already nearly a third of the 393,000 hectares that burned in all of 2025.
- Víctor Resco de Dios, a forestry engineering professor at the University of Lleida, warned that "we will soon be unable to rule out Dantesque scenarios like those seen in California or Australia," citing rural land abandonment and climate-driven drying of vegetation as accelerators.
Why it matters: Both France and Spain have already broken records this season for area burned and number of fires, and the Gironde blaze echoes a 2022 fire in the same region that displaced roughly 50,000 people and scorched 30,000 hectares. With 80% of the Mediterranean under a marine heatwave and an EU civil-protection request already activated for cross-border aerial assets, the simultaneous disasters on the continent's two largest fronts are stretching mutual-aid capacity before peak fire season arrives.
