{"id":567859,"date":"2026-07-25T17:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567859\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:53:14","slug":"more-than-250000-people-flee-as-uncontrolled-wildfires-move-closer-to-madrid-and-bordeaux-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567859\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 250,000 people flee as uncontrolled wildfires move closer to Madrid and Bordeaux \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 250,000 people fled towns and villages in Spain and France into the weekend as uncontrolled wildfires moved ever closer to Madrid and Bordeaux, metropolitan areas that are home to more than eight million people combined.<\/p>\n

Authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of some western suburbs of Bordeaux, a city in southwestern France famed for its wines, in an area that includes the regional airport.<\/p>\n

About 197,000 people were evacuated in the Gironde and surrounding areas, interior minister Laurent Nunez said at a press conference in Paris. As of Saturday, almost 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) of land have been scorched in the blazes, a record in France, he said.<\/p>\n

While increased humidity overnight means the conflagration in Gironde is no longer convective, or generating its own winds, the effort to get it under control \u201cwill be long and very difficult,\u201d Nunez said.<\/p>\n

The French government ordered more than 1,000 military personnel to support firefighters, Nunez said, adding that an Airbus A400M military transport plane will join Canadairs and other aircraft helping contain the fires in the coming hours.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke rises over a pine forest in Cap Ferret, southwestern France. Photograph: EPA \"AA volunteer gives indication to holidaymakers from Cap-Ferret upon their arrival in Arcachon by boat during an evacuation operation. Photograph: Romain Perrocheau\/Getty \"AA wildfire near Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France. Photograph: Julien de Rosa\/Getty <\/p>\n

Evacuees have in many cases been taken to municipal sports centres as a precautionary measure, mostly to avoid exposure to heavy smoke, which travels faster than flames.<\/p>\n

In Spain, another 30,000 people were evacuated across \u00c1vila province and the region west of Madrid, after 63,000 were evacuated or told to stay indoors as of Friday night. Authorities expect two separate fires raging there to merge at some point.<\/p>\n

The municipal government in Madrid closed off parts of the city\u2019s main parks, telling people to keep away from trees as strong winds were forecast. No casualties have been reported so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur priority, our thinking, our aim, is for your lives, to save your lives and protect inhabited areas,\u201d Spanish prime minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a> said at a press conference in the village of Cenicientos, in the fire zone about 80km from the capital. Unpredictable winds mean \u201cwe\u2019re going to have a challenging few hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke and flames rise as a wildfire advances near San Martin de Valdeiglesias, Avila province, Spain. Photograph: Manu Fernandez\/AP \"SmokeSmoke and flames rise as a wildfire advances near Burgohondo in Spain. Photograph: Manu Fernandez\/AP <\/p>\n

Madrid\u2019s air-quality monitoring system recorded a sharp deterioration in the city\u2019s west on Saturday morning, with the smell of smoke hanging in the air near the Royal Palace in central Madrid.<\/p>\n

France and Spain have been at the epicentre of Europe\u2019s wildfire season, which started earlier than normal and accelerated in recent weeks as successive heatwaves baked vegetation, making it easier for flames to spread rapidly. Before the weekend, fires had burned more than 329,000 hectares across the continent, destroying crops and disrupting transport.<\/p>\n

Fires that have ravaged the southwestern corner of the Madrid region, burning more than 9,000 hectares in their path, remained active and uncontrolled on Saturday, officials said. After reaching their most intense point on Friday afternoon, what had been three separate fronts merged into a single blaze that continued to spread in what regional authorities described as \u201cbeyond control capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fires in Spain have so far passed through a Nasa complex in Robledo de Chavela \u2013 one of three Nasa Deep Space Network sites in the world \u2013 and a 12th century monastery in Pelayos de la Presa, next to where one of the fires originated. The blaze is now heading toward the towns of El Escorial and San Lorenzo de El Escorial, home to about 36,000 people and El Escorial, a 16th century palace that\u2019s the world\u2019s largest Renaissance building.<\/p>\n

On Friday, French authorities had ordered the evacuation of 110,000 residents and tourists after wildfires threatened to reach Cap Ferret, a popular tourist area west of Bordeaux.<\/p>\n

The blazes have burned about 30,000 hectares and engulfed a number of houses in the Gironde department, according to local officials. In Landes department, further south, wildfires torched 2,600 hectares, leading to the evacuation of more than 23,000 people.<\/p>\n

Last week was the worst for wildfires across Spain this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. A total of about 140,000 hectares have burnt in the country so far in 2026, more than three times the average for the past two decades.<\/p>\n

Climate change is intensifying periods of extreme heat in Europe, the fastest-warming continent. Record-breaking heat and drought have fuelled the worst start ever to the global wildfire season, with climate scientists warning that a developing El Ni\u00f1o could bring even harsher conditions later this summer. \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 250,000 people fled towns and villages in Spain and France into the weekend as uncontrolled wildfires…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2885,5148,1814,42,43,32238,2846,40,38,41,39,18335],"class_list":["post-567859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-climate-change","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-weather-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567859","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=567859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}