Wildfires in France and Spain: 325,000 people evacuated. Macron convenes crisis unit

More than 325,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to the massive wildfires affecting the area around the Spanish capital Madrid and the French city of Bordeaux, where the flames are 15 kilometres from the town centre. However, an evacuation of the city “is not on the agenda”, Mayor Thomas Cazenave reiterated. The blaze, which has been ravaging the Gironde region on the French Atlantic coast since Wednesday, now covers 42,000 hectares (equivalent to four times the area of Paris). It has destroyed 240 homes, according to a new report from the prefecture published on Sunday, and has also left 75 firefighters injured, ten of whom have been evacuated. Currently, 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and 1,200 police officers and gendarmes are on the ground. In Spain, the flames have affected an area stretching from the Community of Madrid to the province of Ávila (Castile and León) and the province of Toledo (Castile-La Mancha), covering a radius of 280 km. In addition, as of today, Spanish firefighters are battling a new blaze near the coastal city of Valencia. “The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish; its perimeter is approximately 21 kilometres. It is still difficult to determine the number of hectares burnt,” Juanfran Pérez Llorca, president of the Valencia region, told journalists on Saturday evening. “We have evacuated around 15,000 people.”

On Monday at 10.00, French President Emmanuel Macron will chair an interministerial crisis unit on the fires that are ravaging the Gironde region in the south-west of the country, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace. Meanwhile, the department’s prefect, Sophie Brocas, has stated that the 220,000 people who have been evacuated will not be allowed to return home “until the blaze has been brought under control”. The prefect has also advised against any work activities tomorrow in the affected municipalities, in view of a possible worsening of the situation with the rise in temperatures forecast for Tuesday. “I urge tourists not to come, not to travel to Gironde,” added Brocas, calling on “tourists currently in the area to consider another destination”.

Bison Futé (the French traffic information service, ed.) urged motorists overnight to ‘avoid travelling to or through the Gironde department’ due to the ongoing forest fires, as the day has been classified as a national red alert for travel. ‘Due to the ongoing forest fires in Gironde (north of the Arcachon basin, Biscarrosse), travelling to or through the Gironde department is strongly discouraged. Postpone your journey if possible. Keep the roads clear for the emergency services,” said Bison Futé. Bison Futé suggested the A20 and A64 motorways as “alternative routes on the France–Spain axis”.

“The fires ravaging our country have reached unprecedented levels. Civil protection experts have never before faced a phenomenon of this kind,” said the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, in a post on X. “Faced with this situation, our priority is clear: to protect human lives. The evacuations ordered by the prefects are protective measures. They must be complied with without delay. The prefecture will organise further evacuations wherever necessary. We will take no risks when it comes to the safety of the French people. Protective measures will be deployed around Seveso-classified industrial sites, taking into account the nature of the products stored there,” he added, explaining that he had already mobilised “over 500 military personnel” on the ground. From today, “they will be joined by around fifteen additional platoons, bringing the total number of military personnel supporting the fire service to over 1,000”.

“We will rebuild, we will repair, and we will be there for as long as necessary,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X. “At this time, when the flames are putting our country to the test, France is showing its true character: a united people, standing shoulder to shoulder,” he added.