France, Spain battle 'monster' wildfires with more heat on the way

BORDEAUX, France: Firefighters battled massive blazes tearing through forests across France and Spain Monday, as authorities warned of a fresh heatwave set to engulf the scorched French wine-growing region around the major city of Bordeaux.

More than 325,000 people have fled their homes, mostly in the Gironde department, home to Bordeaux, as some of the worst forest fires in either country’s history rage across southwest France and central Spain near Madrid.

France’s fire has caused an unprecedented “pyrocumulonimbus” — a giant fire cloud that creates its own winds and packs lightning that causes more blazes, said the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF).

“It’s a David-versus-Goliath scenario… at some point, we’ll find a weak spot and strike there,” said FNSPF spokesman Eric Brocardi.

French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a crisis cabinet meeting to discuss the emergency on Monday morning.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit fire-hit areas in Valencia, in the east of the country on Monday where firefighters are battling a new blaze and where 15,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

On Sunday, during a visit to the fire zone in Avila province west of Madrid, he warned: “Difficult hours lie ahead.”

Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said Sunday evening the fires were advancing, but slowly.

Earlier Sunday, civil protection chief Virginia Barcones, describing the fire around Avila, said the country was battling a “monster”.

“We are dealing with a perimeter of 280 kilometres encompassing 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres),” Barcones told state broadcaster TVE of the wildfire.

‘Extremely intense’

Scientists say climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and intense.

Coming at the height of the summer holiday season, the fires were fuelled by woodland parched to tinder by successive heatwaves and lack of rain since May.

In France, the prefect of the southwestern Gironde region and where the country’s fires are concentrated, urged tourists to stay away and seek “other destinations”.

“The wind is changing so much, it’s really the fire calling the shots. We just have to go with it,” a firefighter said.

Around 220,000 people have been evacuated in the region, with 45 campsites forced to shut, ruining the holiday plans of around 40,000 people.

The Gironde local authority said early Monday it had banned holiday camps, including Scouts’ trips involving overnight stays and holiday camps for people with disabilities.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned “the situation remains very unfavourable” across France, where more than 250,000 people have been evacuated.

The Gironde local authority said early Monday, though, that the fire had remained “broadly stable” overnight.

Firefighters injured

Since Wednesday, the fire in the Gironde area has injured 84 firefighters, 10 of whom have been evacuated, according to the latest situation report published Sunday by the prefecture.

Sebastien Bouvier, federal secretary of France’s CFDT union, said firefighters lacked adequate protective equipment against the fires’ toxic fumes.

Weather forecasters warn another heatwave could hit France from Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 40C in some areas.

At least 240 homes have been destroyed in Gironde region, many of them in village Le Porge.

But Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave said there were no plans to evacuate the city’s urban area, home to 850,000 people and sheltering thousands displaced by the fires. Local officials remained “vigilant”, he added.

The fire has ravaged 42,000 hectares in Gironde — an area seven times the size of Manhattan, since Wednesday.

France’s defence ministry said it has taken special steps to protect industrial sites around Bordeaux, a key centre of the country’s aerospace industry.

The main freeway south of Bordeaux and rail services have been cut.

Some 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to the Gironde region.

‘Incalculable’ damage

King Felipe VI, visiting an emergency shelter in Villamanta on Madrid’s western outskirts, said the wildfires had caused “incalculable” damage to Spain’s natural heritage.

Around 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the Madrid region, Avila, Toledo and from the eastern region of Castellon in Valencia.

Officials said winds were pushing wildfires near Madrid to the south, away from the capital for now, but forcing more evacuations of villages in their path.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the new Valencia fire was proving “very intense”, Pilar Bernabe, the central government delegate to Valencia, wrote on X.

A separate, smaller fire near Valencia killed one person on Saturday, the only civilian death reported so far in the wildfires. In France, two firefighters died near Bordeaux on Tuesday.

Pope Leo IV, in his prayers on Sunday, expressed solidarity with all those affected by the “devastating” Spanish and French fires and called on people to pray for them and first responders.

Italy, too, was facing its own fires.

More than 400 tourists and beachgoers were evacuated by sea near the town of Peschici in the southern Puglia region, with 300 more expected to be rescued, said the coastguard.