Greater than 220,000 evacuated as wildfires approach Madrid and Bordeaux | News World

Greater than 220,000 people have been forced to flee the ‘unprecedented’ wildfires raging across France and Spain – including tens of hundreds in suburbs around Madrid and Bordeaux.

Tourists escaped by automobile and boat when French authorities ordered the entire evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a preferred spot on the Atlantic Coast.

They described huge ash clouds ‘principally blocking out the sun’, with one resident in a close-by village made to go away their home saying: ‘It’s totally apocalyptic.’

And there doesn’t seem like any sign of reprieve from the warmth, with weather forecasts suggesting temperatures will rise sharply again next week.

Some 141,000 fled their homes within the Gironde and Landes regions in France, the French interior ministry said.

In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, in response to the Spanish interior ministry.

Spain declared its first ever wildfire-related national emergency in response to the disaster.

Huge blazes merged outside Madrid, with regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso saying: ‘That is the worst wildfire in our region’s history.

‘It’s the right storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren’t letting up.’

In southwest France, around 110,000 people, lots of them tourists, were told ⁠to go away as two major fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.

Interior minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster TF1 that fires were heading towards Bordeaux.

Yoan Urien, who fled late on Thursday after police ordered his neighbourhood within the town of Biscarrosse to evacuate, said it was possible to see the fires from his home.

‘We could see the clouds becoming darker and darker,’ ​the 26-year-old told Reuters.

Marie Duelz, a 51-year-old Belgian tourist vacationing at Cap Ferret, said she saw ‘a cloud of ash that was blocking the sun, principally’.

The opposite major fire, which began within the nearby village of Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to chop off the one road out of the peninsula and is the most important thus far this season in France.

It has torn through greater than 14,000 hectares of forest and destroyed greater than 100 homes and one campsite, officials ​said.

‘It breaks my heart. Since it’s such a pleasing place to live, seeing it go up in smoke is really sad,’ Corinne Paillaube said.

‘It’s totally apocalyptic,’ said Ambre Dubos, from the nearby Landes region.

In Spain, greater than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate from towns within the mountains west of Madrid.

‘I had ⁠to run from my house. There was a ball of fireplace. If I’d taken five more minutes, it might have wiped us out,’ Enrique Martin said in a shelter in Cebreros, west of Madrid.

A 3rd fire in Avila province was on the verge or could have already merged with the 2 in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the federal government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters.

Spanish police said that they had arrested one person and were investigating one other suspected of starting that fireplace through the use of heavy machinery in a prohibited area.

The realm west of Madrid, where many residents from the capital have second homes, is densely populated.

In only one development 43 homes ​had been destroyed, Diaz Ayuso said.

It’s the second consecutive yr that Spain has faced a very destructive fire season.

Greater than 29 major fires have broken out in Spain thus far this yr, damaging a surface area five times greater than at the identical stage in 2025, when a record area was destroyed, Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said in ​a social media post.

Wildfires have burned more land in Europe already this yr than the annual average previously two ​a long time, data shows because the world’s fastest-warming continent ⁠has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves thus far this yr.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms.

Greece was sending two firefighting aircraft to Spain, and Croatia provided an analogous plane and staff to help France while Italy dispatched a firefighting plane to Tunisia which also has wildfires.

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