BORDEAUX – Firefighters battled massive blazes tearing through forests across France and Spain on July 27, as the authorities warned of a fresh heatwave set to engulf the scorched French wine-growing region around the major city of Bordeaux.
More than 325,000 people have fled their homes, mostly in the Gironde department, home to Bordeaux, as some of the worst forest fires in either country’s history rage across south-west France and central Spain near Madrid.
France’s fire has caused an unprecedented “pyrocumulonimbus” – a giant fire cloud that creates its own winds and packs lightning that causes more blazes, said the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF).
“It’s a David-versus-Goliath scenario… At some point, we’ll find a weak spot and strike there,” said FNSPF spokesman Eric Brocardi.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a crisis Cabinet meeting to discuss the emergency on the morning of July 27.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit fire-hit areas in Valencia, in the east of the country on July 27 where firefighters are battling a new blaze and where 15,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.
On July 26, during a visit to the fire zone in Avila province west of Madrid, he warned: “Difficult hours lie ahead.”
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on the evening of July 26 that the fires were advancing, but slowly.
Earlier on July 26, Spain’s civil protection chief Virginia Barcones, describing the fire around Avila, said the country was battling a “monster”.
“We are dealing with a perimeter of 280km encompassing 77,000ha,” Barcones told state broadcaster TVE of the wildfire.
‘Extremely intense’
Scientists say climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and intense.
Coming at the height of the summer holiday season, the fires were fuelled by woodland parched to tinder by successive heatwaves and lack of rain since May.
In France, the prefect of the south-western Gironde region, where the country’s fires are concentrated, urged tourists to stay away and seek “other destinations”.
“The wind is changing so much, it’s really the fire calling the shots. We just have to go with it,” a firefighter said.
About 220,000 people have been evacuated in the region, with 45 campsites forced to shut, ruining the holiday plans of around 40,000 people.
The Gironde local authority said early on July 27 that it had banned holiday camps, including scouts’ trips involving overnight stays and holiday camps for people with disabilities.
Garden hose in hand, Georges Clivaz sprayed water along a road leading to his property in Saint-Jean-d’Illac in Gironde as the blaze burned a few kilometres away.
“We’re doing this to slow down the fire’s advance; we want to save our homes,” he told AFP.
Although the village was evacuated on July 24, Clivaz said he and his family were trying to hold out.
“But the firefighters are telling us that in two or three hours, the fire will be here.”
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned that “the situation remains very unfavourable” across France, where more than 250,000 people have been evacuated.
The Gironde local authority said early on July 27, though, that the fire had remained “broadly stable” overnight.
Firefighters injured
Since July 22, the fire in the Gironde area has injured 84 firefighters, 10 of whom have been evacuated, according to the latest situation report published on July 26 by the prefecture.
Sebastien Bouvier, federal secretary of France’s CFDT union, said firefighters lacked adequate protective equipment against the fires’ toxic fumes.
Weather forecasters warn that another heatwave could hit France from July 28, with temperatures reaching 40 deg C in some areas.
At least 240 homes have been destroyed in the Gironde region, many of them in Le Porge village.
But Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave said there were no plans to evacuate the city’s urban area, home to 850,000 people and sheltering thousands displaced by the fires. Local officials remained “vigilant”, he added.
The fire has ravaged 42,000ha in Gironde – an area seven times the size of Manhattan, since July 22.
France’s Defence Ministry said it has taken special steps to protect industrial sites around Bordeaux, a key centre of the country’s aerospace industry.
The main freeway south of Bordeaux was closed and rail services have been cut.
Some 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and about 1,200 police officers have been deployed to the Gironde region.
‘Incalculable’ damage
King Felipe VI, visiting an emergency shelter in Villamanta on Madrid’s western outskirts, said the wildfires had caused “incalculable” damage to Spain’s natural heritage.
Around 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the Madrid region, Avila, Toledo and from the eastern region of Castellon in Valencia.
“We had a real scare,” said Azucena Paguada, one of those evacuated to the Villamanta gym-turned-shelter.
“The Guardia Civil came to our house and made us leave, telling us we were in danger.”
Another evacuee, 70-year-old Margarita, showed the stains on her T-shirt, which she has been wearing for four days.
“The Queen came to say hello, and I was wearing this dirty thing,” she added with a sigh.
Officials said winds were pushing wildfires near Madrid to the south, away from the capital for now, but forcing more evacuations of villages in their path.
Hundreds of kilometres away, the new Valencia fire was proving “very intense”, Pilar Bernabe, the central government delegate to Valencia, wrote on X.
A separate, smaller fire near Valencia killed one person on July 25, the only civilian death reported so far in the wildfires. In France, two firefighters died near Bordeaux on July 21.
Pope Leo IV, in his prayers on July 26, expressed solidarity with all those affected by the “devastating” Spanish and French fires and called on people to pray for them and first responders.
Italy, too, was facing its own fires.
More than 400 tourists and beachgoers were evacuated by sea near the town of Peschici in the southern Puglia region, with 300 more expected to be rescued, said the coast guard. AFP
