More Than 300,000 People Evacuated as Historic Wildfires Continue Raging In France and Spain
Historic wildfires in France and Spain prompted mass evacuations as the blazes burned hundreds of thousands of acres.
Authorities evacuated more than 300,000 people from across the two nations to safer areas—100,000 Spanish residents and 220,000 French residents. Spanish authorities ordered roughly 30,000 more people to shelter in place.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told reporters on 26 July that wildfires have burned an estimated 115,000 hectares (284,000 acres) across the nation since the beginning of 2026. And in Spain, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said fires burned more than 150,000 hectares (370,658 acres) since January 2026. The recent fires in Spain account for more than half of that damage, with roughly 119,458 hectares (295,187 acres) burned since July 22.
The current blazes began burning in early July. “Madrid declared a national emergency on [24 July] as wildfires near the capital forced 10,000 people to evacuate,” the United Nations reported. “The head of the regional government said these fires are the worst ever.”
The European Union warned that this year’s wildfire season for the region, exacerbated by high temperatures and little rainfall, could last until early November, according to The Guardian. Hadja Lahbib, EU commissioner for crisis response, coordinated additional emergency response to help deal with the wildfires, including sending seven planes and four helicopters to France and another six planes and three forest firefighting teams to Spain. EU officials also went to France’s Bordeaux region to support local authorities.
France
Authorities have deployed thousands of firefighters to parts of the nation to battle some of the worst fires in France since World War II. Firefighters in southern France continued working on the ground this week amidst rising temperatures to contain wildfires with water, as well as by airdropping fire retardants. Other efforts to battle the blazes include using earth movers to raze parts of forest and scrubland, stripping areas of anything that would feed encroaching flames.
The fires are especially destructive along the Cap Ferret peninsula, an exclusive vacation spot near the city of Bordeaux, which is in the department of Gironde. Authorities moved nearly 200,000 people away from the surrounding areas, and ordered another 4,000 people to evacuate tourist sites along the Atlantic on 28 July. A massive wildfire in Gironde burned an area estimated to be four times larger than the capital city of Paris.
The fires also created a rare and dangerous phenomenon—a pyrocumulonimbus, a smoke column that turns into a thunderstorm with violent winds, fully capable of generating lightning which can in turn ignite new fires with lightning ground strikes. Fires in Gironde created France's first pyrocumulonimbus, which was first reported by fire and rescue services on 24 July.
Pyrocumulonimbus require very hot and very dry air near the ground with cooler and wetter air remaining above to form, according to Theodore M. Giannaros, a fire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens who spoke with the Associated Press (AP). The layered atmosphere changes rising smoke and moisture from wildfires into water vapor or even colliding ice crystals that generate the electrical charges of a thunderstorm. The resulting cloud amplifies the ground-level chaos, creating a feedback loop as the cloud feeds itself.
“Once it forms, the cloud becomes its own weather system, sitting on top of the fire and making it harder to predict,” Giannaros told the AP. A pyrocumulonimbus can also generate whirling columns of flame, and, in rare instances, tornadoes. For emergency responders, such a cloud exacerbates conditions, given its unpredictability.
Gironde’s regional authorities are warning vacationers away by banning camp programs in the area for children and people with disabilities.
“Government ministers also urged people not to travel to the region that is popular for its Atlantic beaches, famous wines, and some of France’s largest expanses of forests,” the AP reported.
The fires also threaten several of the nation’s defense-industrial sites, including an ArianeGroup facility that manufactures submarine-launched ballistic missile components, Dassault Aviation’s assembly site for the Rafale fighter jet, and one of Roxel’s main manufacturing sites for solid rocket motors used in MBDA’s missiles, according to Defense News. ArianeGroup and Dassault Aviation announced that they were evacuating their at-risk sites, including removing sensitive equipment.
The French Atomic Energy Commission CEA also closed its military nuclear research site near Bordeaux.
“After wildfires in 2022, the center put in place new procedures, provided additional fire-fighting equipment to the in-house fire brigade, and created firebreaks around the center,” Defense News reported. The CEA’s Cesta site in Gironde “houses the organization’s megajoule laser, a research instrument used to create conditions of extreme heat and pressure similar to those produced by nuclear weapons, and part of France’s efforts to maintain the credibility of its nuclear deterrent without live nuclear testing.”
In some areas throughout the department of Landes, however, residents have been allowed to return home. Residents of Sanguinet and Parentis-en-Born returned after one of the wildfires stopped advancing and no new fires started, although authorities warned that the fire was not extinguished.
Spain
Authorities attributed at least 12 deaths in early July to a fast-moving wildfire in Spain’s Andalusia region.
As of 20 July, wildfires had spanned hundreds of miles and reached Madrid. Spanish authorities declared a national emergency four days later.
Another fire in the Valencia region’s Castellon province impacted more than 4,300 hectares (10,600 acres), prompting regional authorities to describe the fire as uncontrollable.
“It’s very difficult to extinguish from a technical standpoint, especially because of the adverse weather conditions that will continue throughout the day,” Juanfran Pérez, Valencia’s regional leader, told reporters.
Exacerbating emergency response efforts in the Castellon province’s Vall d’Uixo is explosive ordinance left over from the Spanish Civil War, according to Valencia’s fire chief Chevi Bolumar, speaking to public broadcaster TVE.
