Spain’s largest wildfire on record scorches 500 square kilometers
Macron visited a coordination center for the firefighting effort in southwest France on Monday, where he heard from the Gironde region’s fire chief how crews had wrestled with a blaze that has been “wildly unpredictable,” according to the chief’s description. The chief said the fire was “a fire that’s going everywhere” and had generated electrical storms that sparked additional flare-ups. Macron described the situation as “completely unprecedented” and called it France’s worst fire-related crisis since World War II.
The fire, which has been burning since last week, has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to flee their homes in the southwest, according to French authorities. Two separate fires in the region have driven a total of 250,000 people from their homes. Macron said displaced people were “traumatized” by the upheaval and “who sometimes have lost everything.”
No new evacuations were announced Monday, but authorities for the Gironde region around Bordeaux worked to keep vacationers away as France enters its peak August tourist season. The government banned holiday camps for children and for people with disabilities and urged people not to travel to the region, which is popular for its Atlantic beaches and famous wines. Crews used earth movers to tear up strips of forest and scrubland to create barren spaces intended to block the flames, which officials said had come within 15 kilometers (10 miles) of Bordeaux’s outskirts.
Macron praised firefighting teams who stopped the inferno’s progression Monday after days of spreading flames. But with woodlands still smoldering, he and other government officials cautioned that the battle isn’t yet won. “The weeks ahead will be hard. We must hold firm,” Macron said. He added, “The last 24 hours went well, thanks to your work. Doubtless, tomorrow will be more complicated than today.”
Around a dozen countries have provided planes, helicopters, firefighters and other assistance to both France and Spain, which is also fighting unprecedented blazes. In Spain, wildfires have burned out of control around Madrid and in the Valencia region. The fire in Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching 500 square kilometers (193 square miles), the government said. Authorities evacuated 79,000 people and confined 30,000 others to their homes.
“Look at how the valley is burned. Look at the houses, the people,” said David Gonzalez, a 48-year-old gardener who used his van to run supplies to firefighters in Ávila. “We are feeling lot of anger and helplessness. It’s something inhuman.”
Spanish Ecology Minister Sara Aagesen said fires have burned 1,530 square kilometers (590 square miles) this year in Spain — six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025. She said that another heat wave forecast from Tuesday, which would be Spain’s fourth so far this year, could increase the fire danger. Spain’s weather agency forecast temperatures above 40°C (104°F).
In Italy, a wildfire driven by strong winds broke out Sunday afternoon near Peschici in the southern Puglia region, burning pine forest and scrub. Authorities said about 300 tourists were evacuated from beaches and campgrounds. The Coast Guard evacuated tourists by sea to nearby Vieste, where temporary shelters were opened. Three Canadair water-bombing planes and fire crews on the ground continued Monday to battle the blaze.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the exceptional scale of the fires is driven by heat waves that hit especially hard and early this year, making forests and scrubland tinder-dry. “What we are experiencing is not a series of isolated incidents. It is the consequence of a climate emergency that is making wildfires even more violent, heat waves more frequent,” he said.