More than 267,000 people have been forced to flee parts of Western Europe on Saturday as out-of-control wildfires continued to rage in Spain and France. The blazes have been worsened by tinderbox conditions resulting from successive heat waves experienced by both countries since May.
In Spain, thick black ash coated roof terraces in the north of Madrid's center, where 70,000 people were evacuated. Residents were forced to keep their windows closed due to the smell of throat-irritating smoke. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, visiting the fire zone near Madrid, stated that the priority was to "save lives" while warning of a "complex" fight ahead. His government declared a national emergency.
Sanchez noted that fires had already burned 130,000 hectares of forest this year in Spain, exceeding the annual average of 100,000 hectares over the past decade. He added that more favorable weather on Saturday offered "a window of opportunity" for fire crews to gain control of the blazes. "We are going to have some complex hours ahead because although the temperatures have gone down, we do not know exactly how the wind will develop, how strong it will be," he said.
Jacqueline Villafranca, 38, who evacuated to Madrid with her husband and two daughters, described the fear when smoke filled her village of Navalagamella, saying, "I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything." She noted, "Here you can breathe normally — yesterday it was unbearable," while sitting in a gymnasium-turned-shelter.
Audiovisual technician Luis, who had been helping evacuees from the village of Pelayos de la Presa, was ordered to evacuate his suburban town. He told AFPTV, "I cried at first because it's where I grew up. But now, it's more a feeling of anger and resignation, because there's nothing we can do as long as we're not allowed to go back and see what we'll find there."
In France, nearly 242,000 acres have been ravaged by wildfires, which French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez called a "historic record," nearly 10 times the size of Paris. At least 197,000 people have been evacuated in France, described by Nunez as "probably" the biggest peacetime evacuation the country has seen.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented, noting that the Gironde blaze had become so strong it was generating its own winds. He posted on social media that the priority was "protecting human lives" and that evacuation orders "must be respected without delay." He added, "We will take no risks when it comes to the safety of the French people."
French President Emmanuel Macron deployed 1,000 soldiers to assist firefighters near Bordeaux. His government also ordered an A400M military transport aircraft, capable of releasing 20 tons of fire retardant, to join the fleet of smaller planes dousing the flames. Around 100 firefighters from Paris were also sent to the southwest, adding to existing crews.
Both Spain and France have received international assistance. Italy sent two water-dumping firefighting planes to Spain, which was also expecting two more from Greece, along with aircraft from the Netherlands and Portugal. France is expecting water-bombers from Croatia, planes from Portugal, and heavy-lift helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Laurent Moretti, a resident in Arès, France, told the Associated Press, "It's quite impressive and even frightening. An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control." Authorities reported that dozens of French firefighters have been injured, but no deaths were reported in either country.
Emergency shelters were established in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for displaced residents and tourists. Caroline Larrode, 49, who fled her home in Saumos with her three cats, described the situation at a Bordeaux hangar housing evacuees: "We had no one to put us up."
Scientists note that global warming is increasing droughts and making weather emergencies more extreme and frequent, with Europe warming faster than any other continent. The total area of land burned across EU countries this year is the second largest on record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
