Over 200,000 people have been evacuated in France and Spain as unprecedented forest fires raged near Madrid and Bordeaux, a French city flanked by tourist havens and world-renowned vineyards.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday asked the army to mobilise to help contain the worst wildfire the country has ever seen after seeking European Union help, as a local official warned the blaze was heading towards Bordeaux.
Some 44,000 people fled the up-market Cap Ferret peninsula south of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast, with the only road threatened by flames.
Boats moved hundreds of people away from the fires, while others drove off the peninsula, known for its millionaire residences. More than 50 houses there have been destroyed.
At least 141,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France and 25,000 in the Madrid region, among them more than 1,200 elderly and disabled people, French and Spanish officials said.
Madrid and Paris have called in EU help as flames whipped up by strong winds and boosted by drought tore through tinder-dry forests.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France had never before seen such fires on this scale and pledged to “do everything” to protect Bordeaux.
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Madrid fire ‘at its peak’
Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government’s emergency management chief, said the wildfire near the capital was “at its peak and is currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain”.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will go to the zone early Saturday to visit the emergency coordination centre there.
His French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting of key ministers late Friday and said a total of 1,000 military personnel will be deployed to confront the flames, which have already ravaged 22,000 hectares.
In addition, “1.5 million FFP2 masks will be delivered as of tonight to Gironde in order to protect the personnel involved and the populations exposed to smoke that is harmful to health,” he said on X.
About 40 of the 1,000 firefighters battling the Cap Ferret blaze have been injured, authorities said. Three firefighters have died in wildfires in France and Italy this week.
