By Elizabeth Howcroft, Sergio Leon and Manuel Ausloos
BORDEAUX, France/MADRID, July 25 (Reuters) – Wildfires on the coast of southwestern France moved inland towards Bordeaux on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of thousands in the city’s suburbs, while in neighbouring Spain high winds fanned a massive blaze near Madrid.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in both countries because of those fires, the latest natural disasters linked to sustained dry spells and successive heatwaves that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change.
“The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote on X.
So far this July, high temperatures have averaged 32.2 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) in the region of France hit by the fires, which is 7.3 degrees Celsius (13.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above the month’s average high between 1961 and 1990, according to data on Reuters Climate Monitor.
“We expect a fight that will be long and very difficult,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez later told reporters.
France’s armed forces have been drafted in to help overwhelmed fire brigades. On Saturday afternoon an A400M military transport aircraft, the biggest in France’s fleet, joined the effort by dumping liquid over a flame-hit forest, Reuters TV footage filmed from a helicopter showed.
Three blazes in the vicinity of Madrid, two of which merged on Friday, have prompted Spain to declare its first national emergency over a wildfire.
Spain’s Civil Protection Service said it expected four more water-dumping aircraft to arrive on Saturday, two from Italy and two from Greece – sent as part of a European Union response to the emergency. Firefighting aircraft from the Netherlands and Portugal have already been deployed in Spain.
WIND MAKES MATTERS WORSE
High winds have stoked and spread the fires in both countries. The coast near Bordeaux is a tourist hotspot which includes pine forests that can catch fire easily. The city is also famous for its eponymous wines from nearby vineyards.
Roughly 197,000 people have so far been evacuated from the Gironde and Landes departments close to Bordeaux since the wildfires broke out there this week. More than 63,000 people have been evacuated or confined to their homes in Spain because of the three major fires.
French Interior Minister Nunez said the flames were around 30 km (19 miles) from Bordeaux. The government has warned against road or rail travel to the area. Bordeaux airport remained open but train and bus links to it were affected, it said on its website.
Many Madrid residents have second homes in the densely populated area west of the capital where the two fires merged, which is still in the administrative region of Madrid.
A third fire in Avila province has threatened to merge with the two in Madrid.
TAKE THE CAT AND LEAVE
While smoke filled the air in the capital on Friday, it was clearer on Saturday but Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia still warned against outdoor activities.
“Avoid physical activity and staying outdoors. If you go outdoors and there is smoke or ash, use a mask,” she said on X.
Those evacuated from areas near Madrid described their hurried departure as the flames approached.
“I saw clouds of smoke rising into the sky. That’s when I realized something was happening,” Rodika, 60, from the small town of Fresnedillas de La Oliva, told Reuters. She had to be evacuated to about half an hour’s drive away.
“I think we all panicked. Then we received the message telling us to get ready, take whatever valuables we could, whatever was most important. I took my cat, and we left.”
The evacuation was similar for Julio, 41, in the nearby town of Navalgamella.
“Neighbours were shouting, the police were shouting, everything was happening at once. We packed the essentials: two or three changes of clothes, my medication in my case, some cash, and we left,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Ana Beltran in Madrid, Graham Keeley in BarcelonaWriting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Susan Fenton and Louise Heavens)
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