84,000 Evacuees Head Home In France As Europe Battles Wildfire Blazes

Lege-Cap Ferret, France: France gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to return home, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning the corner in a grueling battle against flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris. But blazes flared elsewhere across Europe and actor George Clooney said he’d evacuated his French home because of a nearby wildfire.

Europe is sweltering under an exceptionally hot and arid summer, creating tinderbox conditions for unprecedented fires that have flared from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate homes and vacation spots.  

This aerial photograph taken from a French Civil Security rescue coordination helicopter shows smoke rising along a burning wooden area in Le Porge, south-western France on July 31, 2026, as a wildfire has been ravaging the forest north of the Arcachon Basin (Gironde) since July 22. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier / POOL / AFP)

Firefighters battled flames in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey on Thursday and were tamping down smoldering forests in southwest France where 224,000 people had been forced to flee. Romania shut down both reactors at its Cernavoda nuclear power plant due to low water levels in the Danube River used to cool them.

This photograph shows a destroyed hotel after a wildfire at the village of Agios Pavlos in the Greek island of Crete on July 30, 2026. Greece on July 30, 2026 battled to contain a spate of wildfires, including on the tourist island of Crete that forced thousands of locals and holidaymakers to evacuate, and left three firefighters dead. The Crete fire, south of the city of Rethymno, had forced officials to evacuate some 8,000 people overnight as it threatened the village resort of Agia Galini. (Photo by Will VASILOPOULOS / AFP)

Hollywood star George Clooney wrote to his local mayor that his family evacuated the southeastern French town where they’ve settled and that “we have no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment.” Clooney’s publicist Guido Gotz shared the message to Brignoles Mayor Didier Brémond with The Associated Press.

Clooney wrote that he and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, were committed to the town and that, whatever happens, “we’ll be part of making it whole.”

This photograph shows a burning area during a wildfire near the village of Asomatos in the Greek island of Crete on July 30, 2026. two firefighters died battling a forest blaze on the Greek island of Crete on Wednesday, the fire department said as several fires broke out around the country, fed by gale-force winds. The fire department in a statement said the men had died "during an operation to contain a rural forest fire in the Krya Vrysi area of Rethymno." (Photo by Costas Metaxakis / AFP)

The fire near Brignoles, in the Var region, flared Wednesday, forcing 700 people to evacuate, the mayor’s office said. It said they were allowed back Thursday once the fire was tamed.

Returnees in France clear away ash

In the Bordeaux region of southwest France, wildfire evacuees streamed back to nine localities that authorities now deem safe after round-the-clock combat with the huge fire that ignited last week. Returnees included 50-year-old Sanachit Pho Ne Keo and his wife, relieved to discover that apart from black ash on an outside terrace, their home in Martignas-sur-Jalle wasn’t damaged. 

“Everything seems OK and it’s a good feeling!” he said. 

“The fire was pretty close, the last smoking embers are still close,” he added. “But we could’ve expected worse.”

Volunteers work to fight a wildfire in Fethiye, in the province of Mugla, southwestern Turkey on July 30, 2026. An intensive battle against wind-fanned forest fires continued on July 30, 2026, in Turkey's southern tourist regions, specifically around the city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast and Ayvalik (in the west) on the Aegean Sea. The Mugla governor's office (southwest) announced that a fire had reignited near the Fethiye marina. (Photo by Murat Kocabas / AFP)

Regional health authorities recommended that returnees wear gloves and face masks as they clean up and wash children’s toys and pets’ feeding bowls and paws. France’s public health agency reported that call-out doctors and hospital emergency wards in Bordeaux had seen a spike in cases involving asthma sufferers last weekend when the raging wildfire was still spewing choking smoke clouds.

“It’s the first somewhat optimistic day,” said Sophie Brocas, prefect of Bordeaux’s Gironde region who gave the go-ahead for nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to go home, including 60,000 allowed back to three Bordeaux suburbs on Tuesday.

Still, returnees were told to keep phones on and pack bags in case they have to be evacuated again.

Tourists and local residents from the resort village of Agia Galini gather in an indoor stadium where they are temporarily accommodated during a wildfire in Rethymno area, in the southwest of the Greek island of Crete on July 30, 2026. Thousands of people were evacuated late on July 29, 2026, as fires threatened a tourist resort on the Greek island of Crete and continued to rage on Thursday, fanned by violent winds, a local official said. The evacuations were decided as the fire, which broke out Wednesday and had earlier killed two firefighters, got to within a kilometre of the village before changing direction in the evening. (Photo by Costas METAXAKIS / AFP)

The A63 highway south of Bordeaux also was reopened, clearing a major artery for road traffic with Spain and vacationers as France enters its peak August holiday period.

“Our feeling is that we’re getting back to the path of a normal life,” Brocas said Thursday evening.

Fire still smoking but not spreading

Gironde authorities said the blaze is no longer growing beyond the 420 square kilometers (about 162 square miles) already affected — an area four times that of Paris.

Capitalizing on the shift of momentum, police water cannons usually used for riot control are being added to the effort to extinguish embers and flare-ups, involving 3,300 firefighters and two dozen planes and helicopters dumping water and retardants, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.

More aid came from other countries, with Luxembourg, Slovakia, Latvia, Germany and Serbia sending fire crews, adding to aircraft and other assistance provided by other countries, and Ukraine also offering help, Nuñez said.

Crews using heavy diggers continued ripping up trees and bushes to carve barriers of land between woodlands that burned and those that didn’t, boxing in the blaze with firebreaks — now exceeding a total of 130 kilometers (80 miles) through the forests.

Emergency crews also set fires deliberately to burn away scrub that could fuel the wildfire.

“If we light a fire here, we know that our fire will move toward the incoming fire. So we’re not taking much of a risk,” said Lt. Col. Jérôme Jallet, overseeing a burn.

A heat wave — France’s fourth of the year — gave way Thursday to cooler weather, higher humidity and even a little rain, helping the effort.

Tinderbox conditions across southern Europe

Successive heatwaves have created tinder-dry conditions across swaths of southern Europe and whack-a-mole emergencies for fire crews, with blazes flaring as others are extinguished.

Greece was tackling large fires on the islands of Crete, Paros and Andros, a day after three firefighters died.

In Spain, firefighters fought blazes in northwestern Zamora and eastern Castellón, after making progress against infernos in the Madrid region and Ávila that prompted the government to declare a national fire emergency for the first time.

At the peak of evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.

In France, two firefighters suffered light injuries battling a woodlands blaze in the eastern Burgundy region and four were injured in the southern Var region on a fire brought under control with a dozen planes and helicopters dropping water and retardant, authorities said.

In Germany, firefighters using drones and helicopters battled an Alpine forest fire near the Austrian border, the dpa news agency reported.

On a heath of birch trees, heather and wildlife in Suffolk, east England, wind-whipped flames burned across an area the size of 140 soccer pitches and forced hundreds of people to evacuate homes, vacation cottages and a mobile home park, fire services said. New U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham called it “a very serious incident.” The southern half of the U.K. is suffering drought.

In Turkey, firefighters and aircraft battled forest fires in four western provinces, including tourist areas Mugla and Antalya.