Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires in southwest France by car and boat on Friday, and Spain declared a national emergency as huge blazes merged outside Madrid and searing heat left tinder-dry conditions across the region.
French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourism hotspot on its Atlantic Coast. A third fire was on the verge of joining two fires that had merged outside Madrid, government officials said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday ordered the military to mobilise as unprecedented wildfires tore through the southwest, threatening villages and approaching the city of Bordeaux.
Read moreMacron mobilises French military as ‘unprecedented’ wildfire approaches Bordeaux
Both countries, which have suffered a succession of heatwaves and fires in recent months and years that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change, sought help from the European Union as the blazes strained emergency services.
Spain's national emergency – the first it had ever declared over a wildfire – opened up federal funding to tackle the crisis.
"This is the worst wildfire in our region's history," Madrid's regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said after telling reporters the fires had merged. "It's the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren't letting up."
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Dora Fernandez, a 57-year-old nurse walking her dog in the park, said she was not worried despite the scale of the blaze.
"It's far from here," she said, adding firefighters "know how to stop it".
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters strong winds, low humidity, and high temperatures were complicating the fight against the flames.
Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government's emergency management chief, said weather conditions were "expected to improve" overnight, with cooler temperatures and higher humidity forecast for Saturday.
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'Catastrophic'
In the Madrid region, more than 430 elderly people and people with disabilities from five care homes were among the evacuated, the regional government of Madrid said in a statement.
Television images showed Guardia Civil police officers wearing face masks helping elderly residents in wheelchairs board buses as care homes were evacuated.
The largest evacuation operation took place in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, with most of the 178 residents at the private Lopez Rumayor care home evacuated to the municipal sports hall.
Spain has seen a series of blazes in recent days as a heatwave and dry conditions have heightened the risk of fast-moving fires, particularly in scrubland areas where dry vegetation has fuelled the flames.
The country's largest active wildfire is burning in the province of Guadalajara, around 100 kilometres north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares over the past week.
"We are living through a dramatic situation, not only in various Spanish provinces but also in regions of neighbouring countries," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on X, saying the government "has deployed all available resources".
Spain recorded its worst wildfire season in recent history in 2025, when more than 393,000 hectares were destroyed by fire, according to EFFIS.
(the broadcaster with AFP and AP)
