{"id":712126,"date":"2026-07-26T14:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/712126\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T14:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:50:11","slug":"firefighters-in-france-battle-to-prevent-huge-blaze-from-approaching-bordeaux-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/712126\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighters in France battle to prevent huge blaze from approaching Bordeaux | Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authorities are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in south-west France<\/a> that has consumed an area of land four times the size of Paris.<\/p>\n

Efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region, where nearly 220,000 people have been evacuated, were hampered by windy conditions on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

In Spain<\/a>, fires west of Madrid were being brought under control, but the prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, spoke of \u201cdifficult hours\u201d ahead, saying the country was suffering the effects of the climate emergency.<\/p>\n

Wildfires have forced more than 375,000 people to flee their homes in France and Spain.<\/p>\n

\"FirefightersFirefighters in Spain and France battle raging wildfires \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Bordeaux\u2019s mayor, Thomas Cazenave, described the Gironde blaze as being \u201cat the gates of the metropolitan area\u201d, between 15 and 20 miles (25-30km) from the city itself, which has a population of 268,000. An evacuation of the city was not on the cards, he said.<\/p>\n

Nearly 260,000 people have been evacuated across France as a whole, including 36,000 ordered to leave another wildfire zone in the Landes region further south earlier this week.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s interior minister, Laurent Nu\u00f1ez, said on Sunday that the previous night had been difficult and \u201cthe situation remains very unfavourable\u201d. He said the Gironde fire had become \u201cextremely virulent and unpredictable again\u201d early on Saturday night, generating its own wind and spreading erratically towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. It had become calmer by the end of the night, he said.<\/p>\n

About 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss team, 1,500 military personnel and about 1,200 police had been deployed to Gironde, Nu\u00f1ez said, as he praised the contribution of 450 volunteers from civil security organisations.<\/p>\n

A drone view of an area burned by the wildfire in the village of Le Porge, Gironde. Photograph: Manon Cruz\/Reuters<\/p>\n

He said another five Gironde municipalities had been evacuated overnight.<\/p>\n

One firefighter told Agence France-Presse that the fire was so virulent it had formed a pyrocumulonimbus, a fire-generated thunderstorm that \u201ccreates its own wind, with whirlwinds, becoming erratic and uncontrollable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The French prime minister, S\u00e9bastian Lecornu, had warned late on Saturday that the coming hours would be difficult as the weather changed. \u201cFrance is facing a historic situation,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cNearly 100,000 hectares have already burned, an unprecedented level and around thirty fires are simultaneously active across the territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three men were arrested in Gironde on Saturday on suspicion of endangering lives. Two of them were accused of setting off fireworks.<\/p>\n

Authorities in Spain said major areas of fire near Madrid had been contained, but S\u00e1nchez said: \u201cWe\u2019re facing some difficult hours, although it\u2019s true that the latest update has shown that last night was very positive in terms of the fire\u2019s evolution and efforts to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smoke rises from a wildfire near San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid. Photograph: Ana Beltran\/Reuters<\/p>\n

He said Spain and neighbouring Portugal were experiencing the varied consequences of the climate emergency, from fires and storms to heavy snowfalls. \u201cThe entire Iberian peninsula is suffering the effects of the climate emergency in a very specific way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Major areas of the fire near Madrid had been \u201ccontained and cooled down\u201d, according to a senior officer with Spain\u2019s military emergencies unit.<\/p>\n

Lt Col Alfonso Arribas told the state broadcaster, RTVE, on Sunday morning that important strides had been made in containing the blaze.<\/p>\n

While the fire near Madrid was being brought under control, emergency workers battled to extinguish a new fire near the Mediterranean port city of Valencia, where at least 15,000 people were evacuated. \u201cThe fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish, it has a perimeter of about 21km,\u201d the Valencia region\u2019s president, Juanfran P\u00e9rez Llorca, said late on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"SpainSpain wildfire burns \u2018out of extinguishing capacity\u2019 as fires engulf parts of Europe \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Authorities also ordered the evacuation of eight more municipalities near Toledo south of Madrid on Saturday, bringing the number of people forced to flee their homes by wildfires in Spain in recent days to 116,000. The situation prompted the government to declare a national emergency over a wildfire for the first time.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n

The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s interior ministry said on Saturday evening that a man had died in a fire in the Valencian town of Manises. He had been found in a car in a ravine, officials said.<\/p>\n

The blazes are the latest episode in a summer of wildfires that threaten to burn an unprecedented expanse of land. Europe has endured a series of heatwaves since the spring, fuelled by the climate crisis, including the hottest-ever June<\/a>, leaving vegetation tinder dry.<\/p>\n

The EU commissioner for crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, told the BBC it was likely that damage from wildfires would exceed previous records. \u201cLast year, one million hectares burned during the summer and so we are expecting to face another historical, sad record because the season has started earlier in the year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Firefighters battle a blaze in Ares, south-west France. Photograph: Damien Rembert\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cForecasters are predicting, unfortunately, another heatwave so we can expect other wildfires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s environment ministry said 32 major fires affecting 152,678 hectares (377,276 acres) had been recorded so far in 2026, compared with seven affecting 24,133 hectares in the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Gironde fire in France has so far burned 42,000 hectares, an area four times the size of Paris and one of the biggest devastations of land since the second world war.<\/p>\n

At least 240 homes had been destroyed and many more damaged, a gendarme told BFMTV.<\/p>\n

Firefighters prepare to join efforts to contain the Gironde fire. Photograph: Astrid Lagougne\/EPA<\/p>\n

Firefighters are battling to slow the fire\u2019s progression toward Bordeaux from the ground and air, with planes dropping water and retardants. J\u00e9r\u00f4me Steffe, the mayor of Cestas commune, 10 miles from Bordeaux city centre, told French media: \u201cWe are working together to put in place a firewall to block the advance of the flames.\u201d<\/p>\n

An exhibition centre in Bordeaux has been turned into an emergency shelter, providing camp beds and food for thousands of people, including hundreds of older people evacuated from care homes.<\/p>\n

Cazenave said he had asked the central government for an economic crisis plan for the area because many businesses and workers had been evacuated from areas west of Bordeaux and the tourism industry had been heavily affected. He said it was impossible to say when people evacuated as a precaution could return to their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how long this crisis will last, whether several days or several weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Landes fire has consumed 3,600 hectares and a rekindling of flames on Saturday had to be tackled from the air Nu\u00f1ez said. French authorities are also dealing with wildfires in the south-eastern Var region, where 3,000 people have been evacuated, as well as the Hautes-Alpes and Corsica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in south-west France that has consumed an area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-712126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}