France and Spain race to control wildfires which have forced 250,000 to evacuate

Several large wildfires remained ‘out of control’ across Europe on Saturday, with firefighters battling to contain them, as ITV News’ Jay Akbar reports

France and Spain have evacuated tens of thousands of people near the cities of Bordeaux and Madrid, as firefighters battle the worst forest fires on record in both regions.

French President Emmanuel Macron has mobilised the army amid fears that the fire will reach Bordeaux.

In Spain, firefighters are hoping to gain control of the blaze, but wind threatens to fan the flames further.

Francisco Martin, a government delegate in Madrid said: “In terms of figures, we are talking about around 20,000 hectares in the Madrid region that are currently affected by the fire. This is undoubtedly the largest fire in the history of the Madrid region.”

A specially adapted military A400M aircraft has been adapated to drop air retardant on the fire in southwestern France. / Credit: EBU/AFP

France has used a massive specially adapted military aircraft to dump flame retardants on a wildfire that was threatening the suburbs of the wine region city of Bordeaux.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the hulking A400M aircraft would join 18 other water- and retardant-dropping planes and helicopters waging an expected “long and very difficult” battle against the blaze raging in the Gironde region of southwestern France.

With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving the fire closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other steps to block it, Nunez said. He said the fire was about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight.

The government mobilized soldiers to join the battle and was rushing in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.

The French government has mobilised the army to help firefighters tackle the blaze. / Credit: IMAGES ADC GUILLAUME LATEYROUX SDIS 33/AP

In order to free up resources to tackle the blaze, Sunday’s final stage of the The Tour de France’s has been slashed in length.

The Paris police department said in a statement on Saturday that the riders will race inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 89 kilometers (55 miles), down from the 133-kilometer (82.5-mile) route that had been planned.

The statement said part of the security deployment planned for the 21st and final stage of the three-week race will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires.”

Authorities ordered people between the fire and Bordeaux to evacuate, including from parts of the city’s western suburbs and other towns and villages.

French 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.

“Our priority is clear: protecting human lives,” he posted on X, adding that evacuation orders “must be respected without delay.”

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.

A burnt-out house in southwestern France. / Credit: AP

Dozens of French firefighters have been injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country despite the scenes of panic as townsfolk fled by car and police went door to door to tell people to leave as large plumes of smoke darkened the skies.

More than 250,000 people have already been evacuated by this week’s fires.

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.

The virulence of the wildfires, fueled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change, caught fire crews and authorities off guard in both countries.

Fires have burned 130,000 hectares of forest already this year in Spain. / Credit: AP

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, Sánchez said on 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.

Other European nations were helping, with Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia already providing or expected to deploy water-dumping planes and helicopters to the Spanish and French fire fronts.