Firefighters in southwest France are fighting against a mega-fire four times the size of Paris.
Meanwhile, temperatures are expected to climb above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday. The heat wave and forecast winds could hamper progress against the blaze that has forced 220,000 people from their homes, authorities for the Gironde region around Bordeaux said.
Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a wildfire in the Rethymno
region of Crete, Greece’s fire department said. They were among about 125 firefighters confronting flames fanned by strong winds, with four helicopters and four water-dropping planes deployed.
In neighboring Spain, people are bracing for the fourth heat wave of the summer, with several blazes still burning out of control.
Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by huge wildfires.
Here's the latest:
A wildfire now under control near Spain’s capital, Madrid, was one of the worst the area has ever seen, taking a hit to small businesses in villages and towns in the region.
Evacuees have now been allowed to return to their homes and businesses — some of whom are taking in the destruction left by the blaze.
The Monasterio Camping site — which offered tent sites, static caravans and bungalows for visitors — was severely affected by the wildfires.
“Economically, it’s a disaster, especially during this time, as it’s the peak season,” said manager Esteban Carrasco.
In the village of Pelayos de la Presa, the mayor is worried about the impact the fire will have on tourism. The village near the San Juan reservoir offers a green escape about an hour outside the capital.
Mayor Antonio Sin said he hoped authorities would “make a serious plan, based on a careful study of what we need to do, so that first, we restore it to its former state or make it even more beautiful, and second, to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
The head of the local chamber of commerce in the Bordeaux region says callers who dialed in to telephone helplines have at times cried over the loss of their homes or appealed for support after losing their businesses.
“It’s a physical apocalypse when you see all these sites where there’s nothing left aside from burnt homes and forests, and then there’s the economic apocalypse,” said Patrick Seguin, his voice choking with emotion in a phone interview.
He particularly lamented the ordeal faced by residents of Le Porge, a village where 183 homes were lost: “It was like a village in Ukraine that has been bombed. There’s nothing left.”
Two firefighters have died in a wildfire that broke out Wednesday on the southern Greek island of Crete, the fire department said.
The two were among more than 150 firefighters battling a wildfire in the region of Rethymno in Crete that broke out Wednesday afternoon.
“They fell heroically in the line of duty to protect the lives and property of citizens and the natural environment,” the department said in a written statement.
The flames were being fanned by strong winds in the area, which was hampering firefighting efforts. Four helicopters and four water-dropping planes were also deployed, the fire department said.
Evacuation orders were issued for several areas near the fire.
The circumstances of the two deaths were not immediately clear.
Local media said initial reports indicated that the two were trapped in their vehicle after becoming disoriented by the smoke.
Greece’s coast guard said two coast guard patrol boats and private vessels were on standby should an evacuation by sea become necessary in the Rethymno fire.
By Wednesday afternoon, firefighters had stabilized forest fires burning in the Madrid region and province of Ávila, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
Authorities lifted all evacuation orders in Ávila and in additional villages affected in the Madrid region.
Together, the two fires burned about 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) — an area slightly larger than Chicago.
Despite the positive development, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez urged caution as much of the country was baking under a fourth heatwave that began Wednesday.
Firefighters continued to battle a large wildfire in Castellón in eastern Spain.
Extreme heat strips moisture from vegetation and drives down humidity, turning grasses, brush and forest litter into faster-burning fuel.
Météo-France said Wednesday would be the hottest and driest day of the week, with elevated wildfire danger across every region of France. Drought now covers mainland France and Corsica, with soils nearing the record dryness reached in August 2022.
Smoke from the Gironde and Landes fires also pushed particulate pollution higher across both departments, regional air-quality monitors said.
Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people out of tourist sites along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.
“The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” said Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who also authorized 60,000 evacuees to return to three Bordeaux suburbs untouched by fire.
The opposing movements — thousands ordered out of coastal resorts as others returned with mobile phones on and emergency bags packed — captured how precarious the situation remains.
Turkish authorities have evacuated around 200 residents and a state hospital as a preventive measure, as the wildfire in southwest Turkey continues to rage.
Ahmet Aras, the mayor of Mugla province, says strong winds are hampering efforts to bring the fire under control. Earlier, the blaze forced the closure of a highway in the region.
Firefighters were also tackling wildfires in other parts of the country, including in the neighboring province of Antalya where a number of holiday homes were evacuated as a protective step, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Belgium is deploying military staff and hardware to fight fires in France, the country’s defense minister said on Wednesday.
“Our military personnel have the expertise and resources necessary to support the fight against forest fires and thus help protect human lives, homes, and precious natural areas,” said Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken, who posted videos online of 2 Panther firetrucks being loaded onto an A400M military cargo plane for transport to France.
As the pair of firetrucks take to the sky, a convoy of 9 water trucks with 10,000-liter tanks will drive to support France’s efforts to battle blazes. A total of 29 military personnel will be deployed to France for at least two weeks of round-the-clock rotational duty.
“When a friendly country faces a crisis of this magnitude, we don’t respond with words, but with actions,” Francken said.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said on social media that “in these difficult times, our French neighbors can count on our solidarity.”
Britain’s Environment Agency said on Wednesday that about half of England is now experiencing a drought as the country entered its fourth heat wave of the year.
Parts of central, eastern, and southern England are facing drought conditions, which came on quickly due to a combination of very low rainfall and high temperatures.
“Rivers are running low, farmers are having to harvest crops early, wildfire risk is increasing, and millions of people are living under restrictions on water use,’’ the agency said in a statement.
This is England’s second drought in a row and the third in the past five years as Britain’s climate changes, the agency said.
England has now entered its fourth heat wave of the year. That, combined with July rainfall that has been 1% of normal in southern England, means that water storage is being depleted and there is “no substantial rain on the way,” the agency said.
In Greece, firefighters were tackling several wildfires around the country, with the most serious being one that broke out Tuesday on the Aegean island of Paros.
Authorities urged people to evacuate from around 10 areas on the island – five on Tuesday and another five during the night, in the early hours of Wednesday.
Reinforcements of firefighting teams specialising in forest fires were sent from Athens, and two water-dropping planes and five helicopters were helping nearly 90 firefighters battling the flames on the ground, the fire department said.
The Grand Verdus wine chateau near Bordeaux isn’t in the path of the monster fire, but it is bracing for the economic impact.
Edouard le Grix de la Salle, who runs the family business with his brother, is alarmed that France’s interior minister and other government authorities have urged people to avoid the Bordeaux region because of the blaze west of the historic city. August is a peak period for tourism in southwest France.
“It’s incredible that they’ve said such a thing, especially when wine tourism is becoming more and more important,” Grix de la Salle said in an Associated Press interview. “How did they not think about protecting that sector? And the cultural sector too—there’s so much to visit in Bordeaux. There are so many museums, there are châteaux. It’s unbelievable.”
A wildfire in southwest Turkey has forced authorities to temporarily shut down a highway from the popular tourist hub of Fethiye to the city of Antalya.
The blaze began in an agricultural area in Mugla province on Wednesday before spreading into a nearby forest area, driven by strong winds.
Five airplanes, 11 helicopters, 40 fire trucks and hundreds of personnel were dispatched to extinguish the fire, the Mugla governor’s office said.
The statement called on motorists to use alternative routes and not to block emergency lanes.
Tens of thousands of evacuees in central Spain were expected to return home starting Wednesday after firefighters made progress with blazes burning in the Madrid region and Ávila.
Authorities began lifting evacuation orders on several towns in the Madrid region late Tuesday, allowing some 20,000 people to return to their homes, along with 14,000 people who had been under shelter-at-home orders, according to Francisco Martín, the Madrid region’s central government representative.
Some villages in Ávila, which was battling the biggest fire in the history of Spain, were also expected to be allowed to go back to their homes. Authorities were expected to provide more details Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, 10,000 people were still under evacuation orders due to a wildfire in Castellón in eastern Spain that authorities said was still not under control.
Spain’s weather agency AEMET is warning that the risk of wildfires remains very high or extreme across much of the country.
Back-to-back heatwaves have suffocated Spain this summer, with temperatures repeatedly exceeding 40 Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The fresh heatwave was expected to mainly affect the northeast and parts of central Spain, while temperatures were pushing 40 Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several inland areas in the normally hot, southern Andalusia region.
Temperatures are expected to reach 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) in eastern England on Wednesday, pushing parts of the country into its fourth heat wave of the year, according to the UK Met Office.
The U.K. Health Security Agency has issued an amber heat-health advisory for London and southeast England, warning of increased risk to older people and the very young that may strain health and social care providers.
Temperatures are expected to drop on Thursday, with forecast highs around 27 degrees C (81 degrees Fahrenheit), the Met Office said.
This spring was the warmest ever recorded in England, and temperatures remained well above normal in June and July, the Met Office said earlier this month. The average mean temperature in England was 2.4 degrees (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above average between June 1 and July 15, the agency said.
So says Matthieu Jomain, a commander in the massive effort to contain the mega-blaze in southwest France that’s burned through an area four times the size of Paris.
Speaking Wednesday, Jomain said the blaze burning since last week isn’t growing any more but still isn’t beaten. A heat wave that will further dry out already arid forests and scrubland is heightening the risk of flames flaring again. Fire crews are bracing for forecast temperatures above 40 C (104 F).
“More than 2,200 firefighters are still deployed,” he said. “Almost all of France’s firefighters are there. Our European counterparts have come to lend us a hand on the ground and in the air. We have a fleet of over twenty aircraft.”
“The strategy remains the same. We strike quickly and strike hard at any new smoke emissions.”
Wildfire smoke can settle over cities for days — like the recent blanket over parts of the U.S. from burning fires in Canada, which has created hazardous air for millions of people across multiple states.
Health officials advise people to stay indoors — and to take steps to keep the air in your home clean:
1. If you have central air conditioning, it should clean the air in your home. Make sure filters are replaced on schedule and are of the highest level of filtration your system can handle.
2. If you buy a portable air filter, look for a HEPA air filter or one that says it traps small particles of pollution. Ensure it does not generate ozone, another harmful air pollutant.
3. Whether it’s a towel, some tape, or something else — plug areas where air could enter from outside.
4. Exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to shortness of breath, chest tightness, headaches, and a burning sensation in the nose and eyes. If you’re wheezing, can’t catch your breath or are in distress, get to the emergency room immediately.
For the hundreds of thousands of evacuees, the question is the same: What will they find when they’re finally allowed to go home, or to what’s left of it?
With no word on when she’ll be able to return home, Elvira Menéndez will spend her third night on Sunday at the makeshift shelter set up in a sports complex in Villaviciosa de Odón, a 40-minute drive from the home she was forced to leave as the blaze neared.
On Friday afternoon, two major fires near Madrid merged into a single blaze. It later combined with another that was already burning in Ávila, north of the capital. This forced the government to declare a national fire emergency for the first time. Since then, the flames have also spread to Toledo, a province southwest. In all, the flames have scorched 77,000 hectares in the central part of the country alone.
Menéndez’s anguish was shared by Rocío Domínguez, who fled her house with only the clothes on her back. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything, everything, everything,” were left behind, she told The Associated Press.
France’s wildfire grew so powerful that its smoke column became a thunderstorm, generating lightning that struck the ground and ignited new fires beyond the original blaze, French officials said.
Put another way, that means the inferno was no longer simply being propelled by the weather. It was making its own. The thundercloud also produced violent, erratic winds capable of driving the flames in new directions.
The phenomenon, called a pyrocumulonimbus, or pyroCb, is rare in Europe and more commonly documented in North America and Australia, where it occurs only over some of the most extreme fires. France’s national firefighters federation said it had never before recorded one in the country.
At about 6:20 p.m. Friday, two days after the fire began, the departmental fire and rescue service said it had generated a pyrocumulonimbus. The cloud weakened overnight as humidity rose, then formed several times again.
Repeatedly, heat and smoke have surged upward into a vast black thundercloud, electrified and lit from within.
Europe is experiencing one of its biggest evacuations since World War II. Among the more than 220,000 people told to flee are Morgane Bonichot, her 9-year-old daughter and their pets.
Her daughter was in the blaze’s epicenter when it ignited last week, staying with an uncle in the midst of the pine forests, scrub and farmland being consumed by an inferno so virulent that it has morphed at times into a self-feeding firestorm, spitting lightning bolts that have sparked yet more flames.
Among the fire’s first evacuees, the daughter came home Friday. But with the flames spreading closer to her mother’s house west of Bordeaux, the daughter began preparing to flee again.
All told, regional authorities have emptied two dozen towns and villages, some ravaged by fire. Others between the blaze and Bordeaux, including Saint-Jean-d’Illac, were evacuated as a precaution by government officials who say their priority is making sure that no lives are lost.
As wildfires in Europe and North America grow more extreme, key worldwide burning statistics are at a record low largely because Africa and Asia are controlling fire more.
Experts say these seemingly opposite trends are happening at the same time because of what humanity is doing to the planet.
Spain’s wildfire is that country’s largest on record at more than 193 square miles (500 square kilometers), while wildfires in Europe have burned just a bit under 2025’s all-time high. In Canada and the United States this summer, land burned by wildfires is at least 25% higher than the 10-year average and more than double what it was decades ago, according to national wildfire centers.
And yet the world went into July this year with record low global emissions from burning fires, a key measure of their prevalence, the European climate center Copernicus reported. That is because fires in Africa and Asia are way down due to changing agricultural practices, fire management and where people are moving to, said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Copernicus.
Fire crews battled a mega-fire four times the size of Paris in southwest France while facing tinderbox temperatures forecast to climb above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.
The heat wave and forecast winds could hamper progress against the blaze that has forced 220,000 people from their homes, authorities for the Gironde region around Bordeaux said.
In a Wednesday morning update on the huge firefighting effort, Gironde authorities said the situation overnight had been “calm” and that the blaze hadn’t spread — although it’s still not contained a week after it started.
The onset of heat-wave temperatures and winds heightened the risk of flames flaring again.
On Tuesday, Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from tourist sites along the Atlantic coast, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.
