300,000 Flee Wildfires in France and Spain
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- France and Spain have evacuated more than 300,000 people as wildfires rage, with France alone moving 250,000 from Gironde and Landes near Bordeaux as flames generated "its own winds — complete with whirlwinds" that Captain Nicolas Braz called "erratic and unmanageable."
- Spain declared a state of emergency, nearly 60,000 people were evacuated from Madrid and Ávila, and a man in his 70s was found dead in his car in the Salt de l'Aigua ravine in Manises, València, according to local media.
- Pedro Sánchez said 130,000 hectares have burned in Spain this year — above the country's decade-long annual average of 100,000 hectares — while France's Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reported 98,000 hectares burned in France since the start of 2026.
- France has mobilized its military and activated the EU civil protection mechanism, securing three Canadairs from Croatia, two Air Tractors from Portugal, Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and 40 Romanian forest fire personnel, per Ursula von der Leyen.
- The Tour de France final leg, scheduled for Sunday, was shortened from 133km to 89km so security forces can be redeployed to wildfire zones.
- EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib told the BBC that 2026 wildfire damage across Europe is likely to surpass previous records, noting the season started earlier — the Netherlands activated the EU mechanism back in April — and warning another heatwave is forecast.
- Italy's Sicily saw more than 350 fires including 10 major blazes prompting evacuations, while Scotland declared a major incident for a Cairngorms National Park wildfire that has burned for 10 days.
Why it matters: With 130,000 hectares already burned in Spain — 30% above its decade average — and France pulling in water bombers, helicopters, and ground crews from across the EU, the bloc's emergency-response apparatus is being stretched across multiple fronts simultaneously. Lahbib's warning that 2026 will likely surpass last year's one-million-hectare record, combined with a forecast heatwave on the way, signals the worst is not yet over.
