(Reuters) – Firefighters battled massive wildfires threatening the French city and wine region of Bordeaux on Monday, while crews in Spain struggled to control a series of forest blazes raging since last week, the result of a blisteringly hot and dry summer in Western Europe.
About 220,000 people, including tourists and local residents, have been evacuated in France, while in neighbouring Spain nearly 100,000 have been told to leave their homes, authorities said.
The French blazes, which broke out last week near the Atlantic coast, are now only 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) from entry points to the main metropolitan area of Bordeaux.
“This is a fire of a size never seen before,” Jerome Steffe, mayor of Cestas, said on Monday. Cestas is one of the suburbs just outside the main Bordeaux city area.
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The spread of the large fires converging in central Spain slowed overnight thanks to more favourable weather conditions, authorities said, but a separate blaze in the eastern Castellon province raged out of control as the weather agency warned of another potential heatwave this week.
“What we’re experiencing isn’t a succession of isolated events. It’s the most painful expression of a climate emergency that is making sixth-generation wildfires more ferocious, heatwaves more frequent, and our territory more vulnerable,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday.
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