France evacuates 4,000 as Gironde wildfire faces renewed heat threat

Lege-capferret,UPDATED: Jul 28, 2026 15:26 IST

French authorities ordered nearly 4,000 people to evacuate tourist sites on the Atlantic coast on Tuesday as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux. The new evacuations added to a wildfire crisis across south-western Europe, where fires in France and Spain have forced about 330,000 people to leave their homes and holiday accommodation.

In France, officials said the Gironde fire had been stabilised but not fixed, meaning it could spread again as temperatures rise and humidity falls. In neighbouring Landes, thousands of evacuees were allowed to return after a separate wildfire was brought under control. In Spain, firefighters continued battling several major fires as the country entered its fourth heatwave of the summer.

Firefighters held the Gironde blaze in check through a calm night, controlling flare-ups near coastal dunes and keeping the burned area unchanged at 420 square kilometres. The precautionary evacuation order covered campsites, holiday villages, tourist residences and leisure parks around the resort of Lacanau, including Lacanau Ocean and both shores of Lacanau lake, regional authorities said.

“We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told BFMTV on Tuesday. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.” The fire, burning since last week, has at times turned into a self-feeding firestorm as it spread across an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate.

Officials said that even after 24 hours without further spread, smouldering vegetation, rising temperatures and falling humidity could trigger fresh outbreaks along the vast perimeter. Firefighters and military engineers resumed work early on Tuesday on tactical firebreaks meant to stop the flames from spreading, with authorities saying 103 kilometres of firebreaks had been completed. The prefecture said 93 firefighters had been injured while battling the blaze. The A63 motorway remained partly closed, while rail traffic south of Bordeaux was suspended except on the route towards Toulouse.

The overnight progress in Gironde stood in contrast with clearer gains in Landes, where authorities said a separate wildfire had been fixed and more than 15,000 people were allowed to return home on Monday night in Sanguinet, Parentis-en-Born and parts of Biscarrosse. Residents of Biscarrosse’s aviation village and a large campsite were among those allowed back, though several other neighbourhoods remained out of bounds. “The fire is fixed, which is good news in the Landes,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday evening. Authorities warned that the fire there had not been extinguished and that hot spots, wind and drought could still cause flare-ups for days or even weeks.

Both French fire zones faced a fresh test as temperatures started rising again on Tuesday. France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning from midday, forecasting inland temperatures of 33 to 35C. South-east winds were expected across the department, along with westerly sea breezes on the coast. According to the Interior Ministry, more than 116,000 hectares have burned across France so far this year. The European Union’s Copernicus climate service said western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness helping fires spread and intensify in France and Spain.

In Spain, hundreds of firefighters, backed by military emergency brigades and water-dropping aircraft, continued battling several major wildfires, including the largest ever recorded in the country. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said nonstop work through the night left him “reasonably positive”, but he warned that conditions could worsen as temperatures rose again. Spain’s national weather service said the country was entering its fourth heatwave of the summer, with temperatures expected to cross 40C in some areas.

Authorities in Spain have evacuated about 79,000 people and ordered another 30,000 to remain in their homes during a crisis that led the government to declare a national emergency for wildfires for the first time. The biggest concern remained two large fires in wooded hills about an hour’s drive west of Madrid that had at times nearly merged into a single mega-blaze. Another fire in the eastern province of Castellón also forced mass evacuations.

A fire burning through hilly rural terrain in vila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching more than 500 square kilometres, the government said. That is five times the size of Barcelona. “Look at how the valley is burned. Look at the houses, the people,” said David Gonzalez, a 48-year-old gardener who used his van to deliver supplies to firefighters in vila. “We are feeling a lot of anger and helplessness. It’s something inhuman,” he said.

Spain’s Ecology Minister Sara Aagesen said fires have burned 1,530 square kilometres in the country this year, six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a national pact to fight wildfires worsened by climate change. Across France and Spain, authorities were trying to hold the line as heat, wind and drought continued to threaten fresh flare-ups.

With PTI Inputs

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