RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 17 sourcesx whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info By Priyanka Shankar Published On 27 Jul 2026 27 Jul 2026 Wildfires are rampaging through vast areas of land in southwestern Europe, forcing France and Spain to evacuate more than 325,000 people from their homes.
Some of the worst fires in France since World War II come just weeks after record-breaking heatwaves scorched Europe. Authorities have deployed thousands of firefighters to battle the blazes.
On Sunday, France’s Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez, said about “115,000 hectares (284,171 acres) have burned in wildfires in France since the start of the year”. In Spain, 119,458 hectares (295,187 acres) of land have been burnt as of July 22 , according to data from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
More than 150,000 hectares have burned across Spain since January, said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – that’s six times the area destroyed during the same period last year.
Wildfires destroyed 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) of land in Europe in 2025 – up from 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) in 2022, according to the United Nations.
What is the main cause of the wildfires and why are authorities struggling to contain them?
Since early July, wildfires have been burning across southern and western Europe, with France and Spain being the worst hit.
About 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in France, about 75,000 people in Spain, and around 30,000 others there ordered to shelter in place, according to authorities.
In Spain, a fast-moving wildfire in the Andalusia region killed at least 12 people on July 10 . By July 20 , the fires had spread hundreds of kilometres to the capital, Madrid. At least 10,000 people have been evacuated following wildfires in the central region of Madrid. On July 24 , Spanish authorities declared a national emergency, saying two major blazes were “out of control”.
Over the weekend, a separate blaze in Spain’s eastern Castellon province ravaged more than 4,300 hectares (10,625 acres), regional authorities said.
“The fire is out of control, it’s very difficult to extinguish from a technical standpoint, especially because of the adverse weather conditions that will continue throughout the day,” the regional leader of Valencia, Juanfran Perez, told reporters near the site.
The wildfire in Spain has now entered the Sierra de Espadan natural park, containing large forests of pine trees and cork oaks.
In France, the wildfires are among the country’s worst since World War II and have particularly ravaged the Cap Ferret peninsula, an exclusive holiday destination on France’s southern Atlantic coast about 70km (43 miles) from Bordeaux.
Reporting from Maubec, near Toulouse, Al Jazeera’s Nina Montagu-Smith said: “When I visited Arcachon, a seaside town just across the bay from Cap Ferret on Thursday last week, we could see the fires on the peninsula. Within hours, the sky had blackened and the smoke was thick over Arcachon town.”
“All trains from Arcachon were cancelled, apparently due to an ‘electrical fault’,” she added. “Fire engines were lining the A63 from Bordeaux towards Arcachon on Thursday evening as I drove eastwards to Libourne, which is 100km from the fires in the Gironde region,” she said.
Our correspondent noted that after the wind picked up on Thursday evening, smoke from the blaze reached Libourne, where ash was falling from the sky.
“We have since relocated further east in France towards Toulouse, where the sky is very grey and we could still smell the smoke on Sunday night,” she added.
The wildfires have now spread through areas surrounding Bordeaux, where firefighters were trying to prevent the flames from reaching the regional capital.
Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave said the fire was just 15km (nine miles) from entrances to the main city.
“We have a fire that is not under control and which is moving in the direction of the city area,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told France 2 TV on Sunday evening. “The overall situation is very unfavourable, we are in a situation that is unprecedented.”
So far, authorities have moved 197,000 people from areas around Bordeaux – including popular holiday spots which are generally crowded at this time of the year.
The Bordeaux region is famed for its vineyards and the city is one of the main transport hubs for tourists visiting nearby holiday resorts on the Atlantic coast.
Cazenave said earlier on Sunday that there were no plans yet to evacuate Bordeaux, whose wider metropolitan area has a population of about 850,000. Nunez said authorities would continue to assess the situation calmly and realistically, and the government has warned against road or rail travel to the area.
The wildfires disrupted Sunday’s Tour de France finale in Paris, which organisers shortened from 133 to 89 kilometres (83 to 55 miles) after security forces originally assigned to the race were redeployed to fight the fires instead.
Scientists are warning that pyrocumulonimbus clouds – unprecedented in southwest Europe – are forming.
According to the British Royal Meteorological Society, these are thunder clouds “created by intense heat from the Earth’s surface”. They can make conditions almost impossible for firefighters.
They are formed similarly to normal clouds, but “the intense heat that results in the vigorous updraft comes from fire, either large wildfires or volcanic eruptions”, the society said. It explained that there may be a burst of rain because of them but warned that this rain “can then carry embers from the fire, igniting spot fires away from the source. In some cases, dry lightning from these storms can strike without rain, further spreading the wildfire”.
A spokesman for France’s National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF) told the AFP news agency: “Lightning forms within the cloud, striking the embers on the ground and further fuelling the fire … It produces a low, rumbling s...
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