\n This follows from Europe\u2019s record-breaking fire season last year<\/a>, with experts saying the continent is joining a long list of regions \u2014 from Siberia<\/a> to the Amazon<\/a> \u2014 which now endure back-to-back extreme fire seasons.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe have entered an era of fires that cannot be extinguished,\u201d said V\u00edctor Resco de Dios, lecturer of forestry engineering and global change at the University of Lleida in Spain. \u201cThese are fires that burn with the intensity of several atomic bombs.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udd25 <\/a>CNN Weather app brings you climate news and local weather<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Wildfires in France have now scorched more than 116,000 hectares (roughly 290,000 acres), making them the largest on record<\/a> for the country, and there are still months of wildfire season left.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe situation we face today is the hardest we\u2019ve ever recorded, the hardest since the Second World War,\u201d French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday on a visit to Bordeaux. He called the fires \u201ctotally unprecedented.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n One of the most visceral examples of this was the appearance of fire clouds, or \u201cpyrocumulonimbus,\u201d which formed over the weekend in the Gironde region, near Bordeaux, according to fire authorities.\n <\/p>\n \n Fire clouds emerge when particularly intense wildfires generate a plume of extreme heat, which rises rapidly into the cooler air above and condenses into towering thunderstorm clouds. These can create their own wind, rain and lightning and transform blazes into erratic and unpredictable self-feeding firestorms.\n <\/p>\n \n The phenomenon is well documented in Australia, Canada and the US \u2014 the Los Angeles fires in 2025 produced a rare tornado, or firenado<\/a> \u2014 but they are not at all common in Europe.\n <\/p>\n \n The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said it could not yet say for certain this was France\u2019s first pyrocumulonimbus. \u201cHowever, if confirmed, its development would highlight the exceptional intensity of the current fire and the extraordinary atmospheric conditions under which it is burning,\u201d said Francesca Di Giuseppe, fire forecast coordinator at the ECMWF.\n <\/p>\n \n The scale of the fires is also remarkable, experts said. They have scorched huge tracts of land across France and Spain, both of which have requested EU assistance. \u201cA synchronized, multinational wildfire crisis is rare in Europe,\u201d said Stefan Doerr, director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University in Wales.\n <\/p>\n \n The fires are raging near major cities, including one which has torn through the mountainous province of Avila, west of the Spanish capital Madrid, and is now the country\u2019s largest on record, authorities have said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat is uncommon is the current number of destructive wildfires: fires that spread rapidly, overwhelm fire brigades and force communities to evacuate,\u201d said Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London. More than 300,000 people have been evacuated across the two countries so far.\n <\/p>\n \n Complete suppression of fires of this magnitude is almost impossible until the fuel runs out or persistent rain arrives, no matter how many firefighting resources are mobilized, experts say.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn Australia, parts of the US and Canada, there is a general expectation and acceptance of out-of-control wildfires,\u201d said Swansea University\u2019s Doerr. \u201cIn Europe there is still a widely held notion that such fires can be entirely prevented.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Each wildfire is complex and unique and affected by many factors, including land management, terrain and firefighting resources. But extreme weather, made worse by climate change, has been a key driver of Europe\u2019s fires, scientists say.\n <\/p>\n \n Global warming is bringing stronger swings between wet and dry extremes. It\u2019s a \u201cwhiplash effect,\u201d said Matthew Jones, an independent research fellow at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in England.\n <\/p>\n \n Last winter was unusually wet in France and Spain, leading a surge in vegetation growth. Then the weather flipped. Since May, Western Europe has been roiled by a succession of brutal heat waves<\/a>, which parched the landscape. This heat provided \u201cthe \u2018crack of the whip\u2019 in the whiplash effect, turning that dense vegetation into highly combustible fuel,\u201d Jones said.\n <\/p>\n \n As France and Spain brace for their fourth heat wave of the summer, there are fears it may exacerbate and already dangerous situation.\n <\/p>\n \n Extinguishing the current fires completely may take months, authorities have said, but their impacts will linger long after that.\n <\/p>\n![\"Layered](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/snapshot-2026-07-24t00-00-00z.jpg\")
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