{"id":536259,"date":"2026-07-06T19:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536259\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T19:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:46:11","slug":"wildfires-across-europe-forces-thousands-to-flee-homes-amid-powder-keg-dry-conditions-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536259\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires across Europe forces thousands to flee homes amid \u2018powder keg\u2019 dry conditions \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wildfires raging across southern Europe have forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted officials to ban spectators from a stage of the Tour de France<\/a>, amid warnings of \u201cpowder keg\u201d conditions after a record-breaking early summer heatwave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of firefighters are tackling blazes that have burned through almost 20,000 hectares in Portugal<\/a>, Spain<\/a>, France<\/a> and Greece<\/a>. Strong winds are forecast to fan the flames and temperatures are expected to rise again this week.<\/p>\n

In the remote foothills of the French Pyrenees near the Spanish border, 700 firefighters were struggling to contain an out-of-control wildfire that has \u2060scorched 5,000 hectares and prompted the evacuation of more than 10,000 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning, conditions are \u2060deteriorating again,\u201d said the French interior minister, Laurent Nu\u00f1ez, on Monday, adding that with wildfires now blazing in five departments, twice as much land had burned in France so far this season compared with the same time last year.<\/p>\n

The EU said on Monday it was sending \u2060four waterbombing aircraft to France from Cyprus and Sweden to help firefighters around the city of Perpignan. \u201cEurope stands with France,\u201d the European Commission president Ursula \u2060von der Leyen<\/a> posted.<\/p>\n

The Pyrenees fire has nearly tripled in size since Sunday. \u201cIt came within 300m of the houses. We were shocked by how fast it spread, it was staggering \u2013 bordering on panic,\u201d Patrice, from the village of Tr\u00e9villach, told Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n

\"AA civil security aircraft drops fire retardant over a wildfire near the town of Bouleternerre, France, on Monday. Photograph: Jc Milhet\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

The blazes follow a premature May heatwave and another in June that shattered temperature records across western Europe, caused thousands of excess deaths and left vast areas of land particularly vulnerable to wildfires.<\/p>\n

Chantal Mauchet, the prefect of the H\u00e9rault department, where several fires have burned through at least 300 hectares of land, said on Monday southern France\u2019s wildfire season had \u201cessentially started three or more weeks early\u201d.<\/p>\n

The World Weather Attribution group of scientists has said the extreme temperatures recorded in June would have been \u201cvirtually impossible\u201d without the climate crisis<\/a>. Temperatures are forecast to climb again this week, rising to 40 degrees locally.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July,\u201d said the fire chief for Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales, Eric Belgioino. \u201cThis season is going to be a long one for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eastern Pyrenees prefect, Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, ordered Tour de France spectators \u201cnot to go near the route or to the finish area\u201d of Monday\u2019s third stage of the cycling race through the Pyrenees from Spain into France. He said it would be \u201climited to the passage of the riders only and vehicles essential to the race\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ThickThick smoke rises above the village of Filothei during a wildfire on the outskirts of the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Photograph: Giannis Papanikos\/AP <\/p>\n

On the Spanish \u200bside of the border, fire has ravaged 2,200 hectares, 97 per cent of which has been in the protected natural area of Les Gavarres. The head of operations of the Catalan fire service, Eduard Martinez, said the blaze had a perimeter of 40km.<\/p>\n

Firefighters said their efforts would be complicated by rising temperatures and the many \u201csmoking hotspots\u201d within the perimeter, but announced late on Sunday that the blaze was stable and they hoped it would be extinguished \u2060during the week.<\/p>\n

South \u200bof Catalonia, in \u200bSpain\u2019s eastern Castell\u00f3n province, more than 500 people were evacuated after a wildfire spread into the Sierra de Espad\u00e1n national park.<\/p>\n

In central Portugal\u2019s Vouzela area, more than 1,200 firefighters supported by nearly 400 vehicles and 15 aircraft were trying to extinguish a blaze that broke out on Thursday and had burned across an area of 13,000 hectares by Sunday.<\/p>\n

Spain and Italy sent firefighters and aircraft to help and emergency services said on Monday that while dangerous spots remained, 80 per cent of the blaze was under control. Portugal\u2019s interior minister, Lu\u00eds Neves, described conditions as a \u201cpowder keg\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TreesTrees and vegetation burns during a wildfire near Oraiokastro, a suburb of Thessaloniki, Greece, on Saturday. Photograph: Konstantinos Tsakalidis\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n

Elsewhere, large fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, while in Greece, which was largely spared last month\u2019s heatwave, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in the northern city of Thessaloniki.<\/p>\n

Greek authorities issued evacuation alerts for three suburbs and urged residents in parts of the city to stay indoors and shut their windows and doors because of toxic smoke from one of the factories, a recycling plant.<\/p>\n

Another large wildfire broke out Sunday afternoon west of Athens, with 210 firefighters, supported by volunteers, specialised teams and 29 aircraft deployed to tackle the blaze burning through pine forest in the Mandra area. \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildfires raging across southern Europe have forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted officials to ban spectators…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2885,246,1814,2917,61,60,2888,82,2846,42309,1713,18335],"class_list":["post-536259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-france","tag-greece","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-portugal","tag-science","tag-spain","tag-tour-de-france","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-weather-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}