A raging wildfire in southwest France led to the evacuation of 55,000 people overnight on Sunday, taking the total forced out of their homes to 220,000 in one region alone as the flames have crept ever closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Authorities in the Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities southwest of the historic city.
Interior minister Laurent Nunez said that after a “difficult” night for fire crews, “the situation remains very unfavourable.”
“The fire again became extremely virulent again and unpredictable, generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area,” Mr Nunez posted on X.
“It became calmer by the end of the night,” he added.
At the end of his Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Leo XIV referred to “the devastating wildfires” in France and Spain and said: “I express my solidarity and invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the work of the rescue workers”
In neighbouring Spain, authorities oversaw a new round of evacuations because of wildfires in the Valencia region, on the country’s east coast.
Uncontrolled blazes there and others west of Madrid this week have forced 116,000 people out of their homes.
A man was killed in a wildfire in Manises, a suburb of Valencia, that raged for four hours on Saturday, the local government said, marking Spain’s first recorded death in the latest fires.
“We still have some difficult hours ahead,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday, but the night was “very positive in terms of bringing the flames under control”.
In southwest France, gusting winds fed the flames overnight, accelerating the spread of the fire that has been burning out of control since midweek, the Gironde prefecture said.
The area that has burned, much of it pine forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heatwaves this year, has grown inexorably, expanding by Sunday to an estimated 162 square miles, the Gironde prefecture said.
That is four times the size of Paris.
Firefighters are battling to slow the flames’ progression toward Bordeaux, both on the ground and in the air, with planes dropping water and retardants, and other European countries have sent water-dropping planes, helicopters and firefighters.
Soldiers have been called in to reinforce fire crews’ exhausting round-the-clock efforts.
The number of firefighters has grown to 2,500, backed up by 18 planes and helicopters, Mr Nunez said.
A giant A400M military cargo aircraft that has been converted for firefighting will also be used again, he said.
On Saturday, it swooped low over arid, fire-threatened woodlands to drop a long plume of ochre-colored retardant.
Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave described the fire as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area”, having advanced to about nine miles from the city at its closest point.
The Gironde prefect ordered the partial closure of a major road heading in and out of the city.
A second fire burning farther south in the Landes region has also forced the evacuation of 30,000 people this week, taking the total driven out of their homes in the southwest to more than 250,000.
