France And Spain Wildfires: More Than 250,000 People Are Forced To Flee Homes
French authorities say 220,000 now evacuated from biggest forest fire.
Lege-Cap Ferret, France: France sent a hulking military cargo plane to dump tons of flame retardants as it battled raging wildfires on Saturday and slashed the final stage of Tour de France to redeploy security personnel to the blazes that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
The latest wildfires in southern Europe this week have displaced more than 250,000 people, including some 70,000 people who were evacuated in central Spain. One man died in Manises, the municipality reported on its Facebook page, the first death so far in the blazes.
A firefighter sprays water along a burnt area in Blagon, west of Bordeaux, on July 26, 2026 as a wildfire has been ravaging the forest north of the Arcachon Basin (Gironde) since July 22. The fire that has engulfed the area around the Arcachon Basin and is now threatening the outskirts of the Bordeaux metropolitan area has destroyed 42,000 hectares of “burned area,” the Gironde prefecture announced; the prefecture has evacuated a total of 220,000 people since July 22. (Photo by ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP)
In France, the giant A400M transporter swooped in low, its long plume of ochre-colored retardant trailing over drought-hit woodlands in the southwest as fire crews on the ground fought flames that authorities feared could spread toward the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Race organizers and the Paris police department announced a truncated 21st and final stage on Sunday for the three-week Tour, France's most famous annual sporting event, reflecting the immense strain that two large fires in the southwest are causing for emergency services.
This handout photograph taken on July 24, 2026 by the Caporal-chef Damien Rembert of the SDIS33 (Departmental Fire and Rescue Service) shows French firefighters trying to extinguish the wildfire near Saumos and Sainte-Hélène, northwest of Bordeaux, in the Gironde department. An "unprecedented" wildfire tearing through southwest France is heading towards the city of Bordeaux, an official said on July 24, 2026. More than 140,000 people have been evacuated and 22,000 hectares have been burnt: throughout the night from July 24 to July 25, the flames continued to ravage the Landes region and, in particular, the Gironde, where the authorities are now concerned for Bordeaux and have announced tens of thousands of further evacuations. (Photo by Handout / SDIS33 - Caporal-chef Damien Rembert / AFP)
Tour riders will race Sunday inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 89 kilometers (55 miles) — down by a third from the 133-kilometer (82.5-mile) route that had been planned. Part of the race's security detail will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires,” according to the statement announcing the ”exceptional measures made necessary by the situation."
Shifting winds raise concerns for Bordeaux With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving flames closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, predicting a “long and very difficult” battle.
He said the fire was about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux said the blaze grew into “a firestorm" on Friday after igniting earlier this week and cautioned that it “remains dangerous" even though firefighters were making progress.
This photography shows a burning forest during a wildfire near the town of Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France on July 25, 2026. Fires are raging on July 25, 2026 in France and Spain, with nearly 260,000 people evacuated near the big French city of Bordeaux and in the Madrid region, a metropolis confronted with the "worst" fire in its history. Scientists have long warned that climate change caused by human use of fossil fuels will make periods of drought more intense and longer-lasting, creating the ideal conditions for wildfires. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
The government mobilized soldiers to join fire crews and was rushing in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.
Authorities ordered people between the fire and Bordeaux to evacuate, including from parts of the city’s western suburbs and other towns and villages.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze became so strong on Friday that it had begun generating its own winds. Firefighting teams were being reinforced with the addition of hundreds of soldiers and breathing masks to filter out potentially noxious smoke particles were being rushed to those exposed, Lecornu said.
In Bordeaux, authorities took in thousands of evacuees, offering them food and shelter in an exhibition center, and the city’s mayor said it could be equipped to welcome as many as 10,000 people if that became necessary. The city's airport said it remained open but that its bus and tram services were suspended.
This aerial view shows burnt cars following a wildfire in Le Porge, in the Gironde Department, south-western France on July 25, 2026. The fires, which are on an unprecedented scale and have forced the evacuation of around 200,000 "fire refugees" in Gironde and the Landes, were still not under control on July 25, 2026 and continue to keep firefighters and military personnel on high alert, including an A400M aircraft deployed to tackle the blaze for the first time. (Photo by Florian PLAUCHEUR / AFP)
Evacuation orders were sent with special alerts to mobile phones, instructing people to leave, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said. She said the fire had destroyed about 140 homes in the region.
The magnitude of the wildfires caught authorities off guard The French military A400M transport plane, specially converted for fire-fighting, was a heavyweight new tool in the battle. It joined at least 18 other water- and retardant-dropping aircraft and helicopters that Nunez said were deployed in the Gironde region, working in rotation in the smoke-filled skies.
The virulence of the French and Spanish wildfires, fueled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change , caught fire crews and authorities off guard.
Firefighters in Spain said the blazes spread so fast and violently that they could not be tackled head on. In France, some people even fled by boat when flames swept through touristic towns on the Atlantic coast.
Firefighters spray water during a wildfire in Lege-Cap-Feret, southwestern France on July 25, 2026. Fires are raging on July 25, 2026 in France and Spain, with nearly 260,000 people evacuated near the big French city of Bordeaux and in the Madrid region, a metropolis confronted with the "worst" fire in its history. Scientists have long warned that climate change caused by human use of fossil fuels will make periods of drought more intense and longer-lasting, creating the ideal conditions for wildfires. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Javier Organista, a resident of El Tiemblo, west of Madrid, where fire charred a famed chestnut grove. “When we saw the flames coming into our town, surrounding us, leaving us with practically no way out, all the neighbors joined together to try to stop its advance.”
“It’s just really sad,” he said.
Climate change supercharges fires Spain deployed 2,600 firefighters, police and other emergency personnel to two blazes west of Madrid, backed by 19 water-dumping aircraft and helicopters.
France deployed 1,400 firefighters to the Gironde fire and hundreds of others to another wildfire further south in the Landes region. Dozens of firefighters suffered injuries, authorities said amid panic scenes with townsfolk fleeing by car and police went door to door to tell people to leave.
Successive heat waves that hit unusually early and hard this year, baking Europe with record-shattering high temperatures, have turned forests and scrublands into tinderboxes.
Fires have burned 130,000 hectares of forest already this year in Spain, up from an annual average of 100,000 hectares over the past decade, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday as he visited a command post west of Madrid.
He said more favorable weather Saturday offered “a window of opportunity” for fire crews to bring the blazes under control. Madrid's regional government said the fires decreased in intensity as winds and temperatures dropped.
The fatality reported on Saturday occurred in Manises, part of the wildfire-affected region of Valencia.
Other European nations were helping, with Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland already providing or expected to deploy water-dumping planes and helicopters to the Spanish and French fire fronts.
Authorities in the Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities southwest of the historic city.
Gusting winds fed the flames overnight, accelerating the spread of the fire that has been burning out of control since midweek, the authorities' statement said.
The Gironde prefect also ordered the partial closure of a major highway heading southwest from Bordeaux.
The city's mayor said the fire “is still at the gates of the metropolitan area,” having advanced to about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Bordeaux at its closest point.
A second fire burning further south in the Landes region has also forced the evacuation of 30,000 people this week, taking the total driven out of their homes by the blazes to more than 250,000.
In neighboring Spain, authorities have evacuated 70,000 people this week because of fires west of Madrid
French authorities said Sunday that more than 220,000 people have now been evacuated from the main forest fire raging in the southwest of the country that has also forced the closure of highways and rail lines.
More than 50,000 additional people have been ordered to leave villages around Bordeaux, which is now under threat from the flames, . Tens of thousands more have been evacuated from other wildfires in France and central Spain.
Because of the spread of the flames in high winds, 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border has been closed because of the fires, regional authorities said. The SNCF rail company said it had also halted train traffic south of Bordeaux.
The fire "will take a long time to bring under control" and until it is contained "there will be no return" for evacuated residents and tourists, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in an interview published Sunday by La Tribune.
The regional prefecture said that the fire has now burned some 42,000 hectares (103,000 acres) of land, making it one of the biggest in France since World War II. A 1949 fire devastated some 50,000 hectares.
The French army has sent 1,500 soldiers to help hundreds of exhausted firefighters who have been battling the flames for nearly a week.
Heat from the flames was causing whirlwinds that had made the wildfire "erratic and unmanageable", said firefighter captain Nicolas Braz, one of the leaders of the operation.