Wildfires overwhelm exhausted firefighters in France and Spain

BORDEAUX – Fire crews in France and Spain battling unchecked wildfires that have forced more than 300,000 people to flee were overwhelmed on July 26 as the unpredictable blazes advanced.

France’s south-western city of Bordeaux, at the heart of a region of vineyards, was under threat, with a major highway and train lines cut.

In Spain, more villages in the fire zone raging west of Madrid were emptied during the night, while a new front opened near the coastal city of Valencia.

France was faced with “a historic situation”, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said late on July 25.

Tens of thousands more have been evacuated from other wildfires in France and central Spain.

The fire in the south-west and the resulting evacuation operation now rank among the biggest seen since World War II, the authorities said, with more than 250,000 people ordered out of the danger zone.

On July 26, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote on social media platform X that “the situation remains very unfavourable” for fires across France.

More than 5,200 firefighters, soldiers and gendarmes have been mobilised to battle the inferno in the Gironde region that was moving closer to Bordeaux.

Cestas – a village close to Bordeaux’s south-western edge – was “deserted” as it braced itself for the flames, with only a few of its 17,000 residents resisting evacuation, mayor Jerome Steffe told the BFMTV broadcaster.

“This fire is unpredictable, and each time we think we’ve got on top of it, unfortunately it surprises us in the worst possible way,” he said. “Right now, it’s impossible to say where the fire will end up.”

Because of the spread of the flames in high winds, 60km of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border has been closed, the 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, Nunez said in an interview published on July 26 by La Tribune.

The regional prefecture said the fire had now burned about 42,000ha of land, making it one of the biggest in France since World War II. A fire in 1949 devastated about 50,000ha.

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 made the wildfire “erratic and unmanageable”, said firefighter captain Nicolas Braz, one of the leaders of the operation.

New fire in Spain

The wildfire has forced nearby peak-season holiday spots along the Atlantic coast to be evacuated, and the swath of land reduced to cinders is equivalent to four times the area of Paris. Houses in the village of Le Porge, near the ocean, were gutted, AFPTV aerial images showed.

Another wildfire in the adjoining Landes region that had forced 30,000 evacuations was being “better contained – but not yet stopped”, the local prefecture said.

Struggling firefighters were being challenged by “turbulent winds”, a prefecture spokeswoman told AFP.

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

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said late on July 25 that wind speed – forecast to subside – would be crucial to how the fire-fighting went on July 26. So far, “weather conditions have been extremely difficult”, he said.

But a new fire front opened up hundreds of kilometres away, in eastern Spain near the Mediterranean city of Valencia.

At least 15,000 people were evacuated there, adding to the tally of 60,000 who had fled the fires near Madrid.

“The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish,” Juanfran Perez Llorca, Valencia’s regional president, told reporters late on July 25.

Pilar Bernabe, the central government delegate to Valencia wrote on X that “the night was very intense”.

“Weather conditions are expected to deteriorate as the day progresses, so these hours are being used to battle the flames,” he said.

On July 25, one person was killed near Valencia in a separate, smaller fire.

That was the only civilian death so far reported. In France the death toll was two firefighters killed near Bordeaux on July 22.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, making his second visit to the fire zone in 24 hours, said “difficult hours” lay ahead.

But Sanchez said he saw “positive” developments in efforts to contain the fires.

Parched woodland

Woodlands in Spain and France have been parched by successive heatwaves since May that have brought drought to many areas.

Scientists say global warming is creating conditions for weather emergencies to become more extreme and more frequent.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent due to climate change.

Firefighters in France and Spain have now been battling non-stop for more than three days, leaving them exhausted and overstretched.

Both countries have requested, and received, help from other European Union nations, with five planes and two helicopters sent to France, along with a Swiss fire crew.

Four planes have been deployed by other countries to Spain.

In addition, France has started using a specially modified A400M military transport plane able to dump up to 20 tonnes of water or fire retardant.

It joined 18 other aircraft already battling blazes from the sky.

Spain reportedly has at least 29 aircraft in the air over its Madrid fire zone.AFP