France orders evacuation of 4,000 tourists amid massive wildfires in southwest Europe
French officials expanded evacuations along the Atlantic coast as a large blaze near Bordeaux forced thousands to flee, while similar fires displaced about 330,000 people across France and Spain.
French authorities ordered the evacuation of an additional 4,000 people from tourist sites along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, expanding what could become the country’s largest peacetime evacuation. The move came as a wildfire west of Bordeaux reignited near the Grand Crohot beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, prompting the deployment of 23 aircraft to drop water and fire retardant.
Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said the situation remained complicated and that residents evacuated from Le Haillan, Mérignac and Eysines could return, but were urged to keep phones on and emergency bags packed. About 60,000 residents were allowed to go back, while the new coastal evacuations highlighted the fire’s fragile hold.
The blaze, which has burned an area four times the size of Paris, has forced roughly 220,000 people to leave their homes in the Gironde region. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described it as “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation in France outside of war. Across France and Spain, an estimated 330,000 people have been displaced by wildfires this summer.
Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for the national firefighters federation, told BFMTV that the fire was at a “point of fragility” and that crews would continue fighting despite rising temperatures. Military engineers and forest-fire crews resumed cutting firebreaks, completing 103 km of lines on Tuesday.
In the neighboring Landes department, about 15,000 evacuees were permitted to return after a separate fire stopped advancing, a development welcomed by President Emmanuel Macron. However, officials warned that hot spots, wind and drought could trigger new outbreaks.
In Spain, authorities began lifting evacuation orders for roughly 20,000 of the 79,000 people forced to flee over the weekend as firefighters made progress on several blazes. The central government’s representative in the Madrid region announced that residents in ten towns could return home, while stay-at-home orders were lifted for another 14,000 people.
Spain’s interior minister said continuous night-time work left him “reasonably positive,” but cautioned that extreme heat could quickly reverse gains. The country is bracing for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with temperatures expected to exceed 40 °C in some areas, and has declared a national emergency over the fires.
Both France and Spain have reported the formation of pyrocumulonimbus clouds—fire-generated thunderstorms—over their largest blazes, a phenomenon observed for the first time in France and previously recorded in Spain.
The combined impact of the wildfires this year totals more than 1,530 km² burned in Spain and over 1,160 km² in France, underscoring the heightened risk linked to record summer heat and prolonged drought across western Europe.