WORLD
Untamed wildfires force over 160,000 to flee
The unprecedented fires in France and Spain were fuelled by forests left tinder dry by successive heatwaves.
LEGE-CAP-FERRET, France (AFP) — France and Spain evacuated more than 160,000 people as out-of-control forest fires raged on Saturday near Madrid and Bordeaux, with the French army drafted in to the fight against the worst wildfire the country has ever seen.
The smell of burning reached central Madrid early Saturday, as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was set to visit the zone wracked by what officials have called the surrounding region’s worst fire on record.
The major fires have been burning for two or three days, with many hundreds of firefighters battling them around the clock, to the point of exhaustion. Both countries have asked for European Union help.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday ordered the military to enter the fiery fray, which hit residents and holidaymakers alike at the peak of France’s vacation season.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the country had never before seen such fires on this scale.
A local French official warned the blaze near Bordeaux was threatening the city’s greater area, home to many of the world’s most prestigious wineries.
Emergency shelters were set up in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for tourists and residents left wondering what they would return to.
“We had no one to put us up,” said Caroline Larrode, 49, who fled home in Saumos on Friday for a huge Bordeaux hangar housing people evacuated from the Arcachon Basin with her cats Nenette, Poupette and Tina.
At least 141,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France along with 25,000 in the Madrid region, among them more than 1,200 elderly and disabled people, French and Spanish officials said.
Nearly 40,000 more people in Spain were told to lock themselves up indoors.
The unprecedented fires in France and Spain were fueled by forests left tinder dry by successive heatwaves since May. Scientists say climate change is making drought conditions more frequent and making weather emergencies more extreme.
Madrid fire ‘at its peak’
Spain’s Sanchez was scheduled to attend an emergency planning meeting in Cenicientos, a village at the heart of the fire zone just west of Madrid. He was to speak to reporters afterwards.
Two of the three major wildfires near of Madrid have merged into one, and are threatening to join up to form a massive inferno just kilometers from the capital.
The Madrid regional government’s environment official, Carlos Novillo, had told reporters Friday that the fire was “at its peak and... currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain.”
Vast tracts destroyed
In France, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting of key ministers late Friday and said a total of 1,000 military personnel would be deployed to confront the flames, which have already ravaged 22,000 hectares -- an area roughly double the size of Paris.
In a post on X, Lecornu also promised the delivery of 1.5 million protective face masks in the Gironde department surrounding Bordeaux “to protect the personnel involved and the populations exposed to smoke.”
Around 44,000 people fled the swanky Cap Ferret peninsula south of Bordeaux, known for its millionaire residences. Hundreds of them had to leave by boat.
Some 40 of the 1,000 firefighters battling the Cap Ferret blaze have been injured, authorities said. Three firefighters have died in wildfires in France and Italy this week.
Spain’s largest active fire was still burning in Guadalajara province, around 100 kms north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares.