Firefighters battle massive blazes in France and Spain as 325,000 flee and heatwave threatens to deepen crisis.
BORDEAUX: Firefighters faced another day battling massive blazes scorching forests across France and Spain on Monday, with a forecast of another heatwave in southwest France threatening to deepen the crisis. More than 325,000 people have fled their homes as some of the worst forest fires in either country’s history rage across southwest France and central Spain near Madrid.
France’s fire, one of the nation’s biggest since World War II, 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 held a crisis cabinet meeting to discuss the emergency on Monday morning. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited fire-hit areas in Valencia on Monday, where firefighters are battling a new blaze and where 15,000 people have been forced to flee. 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,” Barcones told state broadcaster TVE.
Scientists say climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and intense. The fires were fuelled by woodland parched to tinder by successive heatwaves and lack of rain since May. In France, the prefect of the Gironde region urged tourists to stay away. 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.
Garden hose in hand, Georges Clivaz sprayed water along a road leading to his property in Saint-Jean-d’Illac as the blaze burned a few kilometres away. “We’re doing this to slow down the fire’s advance; we want to save our homes,” he told AFP. Although the village was evacuated on Friday, Clivaz said he and his family were trying to hold out. “But the firefighters are telling us that in two or three hours the fire will be here.”
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned “the situation remains very unfavourable” across France, where more than 250,000 people have been evacuated. The main fire in Gironde, home to Bordeaux, was “extremely intense and unpredictable… generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area”, he said on X.
Since Wednesday, the fire in Gironde has injured 84 firefighters, 10 of whom have been evacuated, according to the prefecture. Sebastien Bouvier 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.
At least 240 homes have been destroyed in Gironde, many in the village of 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. The fire has ravaged 42,000 hectares in Gironde since Wednesday. France’s defence ministry said it has taken special steps to protect industrial sites around Bordeaux. 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.
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 Castellon in Valencia. “We had a real scare,” said evacuee Azucena Paguada. “The Guardia Civil came to our house and made us leave, telling us we were in danger.”
Another evacuee, 70-year-old Margarita, showed the stains on her T-shirt, which she has been wearing for four days. “The queen came to say hello, and I was wearing this dirty thing,” she added.
Officials said winds were pushing wildfires near Madrid to the south, away from the capital for now, but forcing more evacuations. The new Valencia fire was proving “very intense”, said Pilar Bernabe, central government delegate to Valencia. One person was killed on Saturday in a separate, smaller fire near Valencia, the only civilian death so far reported. In France, two firefighters were killed 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 also faced its own fires; more than 400 tourists and beachgoers were evacuated by sea near Peschici in the Puglia region, said the coastguard.
