Arabic version: حرائق الغابات تفرض عمليات إجلاء جماعية في فرنسا وإسبانيا
According to Cnbc, wildfires ravaging southern France and spreading into Spain have forced more than 300,000 people to flee as further heatwaves are expected during the week. French President Emmanuel Macron was set to hold a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was set to visit fire-hit areas in Valencia.
A blaze that began in Gironde, southwest France, on Wednesday had burned 42,000 hectares, nearly 104,000 acres, according to France 24 and local news outlets. It prompted one of the largest evacuations in France’s history. In Spain, fires affected 77,000 hectares, around 190,000 acres, in the Avila and Toledo areas in Western Madrid.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the Gironde fire became “extremely virulent and unpredictable again” on Saturday night, generating its own wind and spreading erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area. The Gironde prefecture said Monday that conditions had remained generally stable overnight, with no major developments reported. Authorities have deployed 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and nearly 1,200 police.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as a “historic situation,” saying nearly 100,000 hectares had burned in France since the start of the year, an unprecedented level. Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the crisis had damaged the local economy. Firefighter Captain Nicolas Braz told AFP the Gironde blaze was a rare and dangerous pyrocumulonimbus fire cloud, which can create winds and whirlwinds that make fires erratic and difficult to manage.
Stefan Doerr, a professor of wildland fire science at Swansea University, said climate change and landscape management were contributing to more intense fires. He said abandoned agricultural land, flammable vegetation, dense forests and a third consecutive heatwave had dried the landscape, allowing ignitions to escalate rapidly. Doerr said Europe needed stronger land management, preparation, communication and science alongside firefighting resources.
