Raging wildfires in France and Spain force over 200,000 to flee
Spain has declared its first national emergency for wildfires, while France is mobilising its armed forces to help with the response
Massive forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 200,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic area on France’s Atlantic coast.
Dozens of firefighters were injured, authorities said in France, but no deaths were reported in either country.
Some 141,000 fled homes in the Gironde and Landes departments in France, the French interior ministry said. In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, the Spanish interior ministry said.
France’s Interior minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that the large wildfire that ravaged large swathes of land in southwestern France was now heading towards the city of Bordeaux.
Speaking to French television channel Tf1, Nunez said the wildfire that earlier in the day forced the evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula had swept across 140 sq km (54 square miles), with 110,000 people fleeing their homes in the Gironde region.
“We learned in the middle of the afternoon that, following the wind shift, it had become a large, self-sustaining fire that is extremely difficult to bring under control,” Nunez said.