Fire crews in France and Spain continued to battle raging wildfires that have forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 people in the two countries.
Authorities in France's Gironde region, where the wine region city of Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities as shifting winds and arid conditions complicated the massive effort to limit the spread of the monster blaze. The evacuation operation now ranks among the biggest seen since World War II, authorities said, with more than 250,000 people ordered out of the danger zone in one region alone.
A firefighter of the Paris Fire Brigade strikes the smoldering debris with a shovel in Marcheprime west of Bordeaux on July 26, 2026, as a wildfire has been ravaging the forest north of the Arcachon Basin (Gironde) since July 22.
ROMAIN PERROCHEAU /AFP via Getty Images
"The situation remains very unfavorable" for fires across France, the country's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez posted on X Sunday.
"The fire again became extremely virulent again and unpredictable, generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area," Nunez posted on X. "It became calmer by the end of the night."
The area that has burned, much of it pine forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heat waves this year, has grown inexorably, expanding by Sunday morning to an estimated 162 square miles, the Gironde prefecture said. That is seven times the area of Manhattan island and four times the size of Paris.
This photograph shows a burned house and car between Lège-Cap-Ferret and Marcheprime west of Bordeaux on July 26, 2026 as a wildfire has been ravaging the forest north of the Arcachon Basin (Gironde) since July 22.
ROMAIN PERROCHEAU /AFP via Getty Images
Firefighters are battling to slow the flames' progression toward Bordeaux, both on the ground and in the air, with planes dropping water and retardants. Soldiers have been called in to reinforce fire crews' exhausting round-the-clock efforts and other European countries have sent water-dropping planes, helicopters and firefighters.
Meanwhile in neighboring Spain, more villages in the fire zone raging west of Madrid were emptied overnight and a new front opened near the coastal city of Valencia.
An Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss aircraft dumps water over a wildfire burning near San Martin de Valdeiglesias, about 70km west of Madrid, on July 26, 2026.
Cesar MANSO /AFP via Getty Images
"The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish," Juanfran Perez Llorca, Valencia's regional president, told reporters late Saturday, according to AFP.
Pilar Bernabe, the central government delegate to Valencia, wrote on X that "the night was very intense".
"Weather conditions are expected to deteriorate as the day progresses, so these hours are being used to battle the flames," she said.
This picture shows the damage at a burned-out house, which sits on a plot used for storing scrap metal, following a devastating wildfire in Pelayos de la Presa, 65 kilometers west of Madrid, on July 26, 2026.
Oscar DEL POZO /AFP via Getty Images
In total, uncontrolled blazes in Spain this week have forced 116,000 people out of their homes.
A wildfire in a bushy ravine in Manises, a suburb of Valencia, that raged out of control for four hours killed one man on Saturday, the local government said, marking Spain's first recorded death in the latest fires.
In:
Europe battling multiple fire fronts
Europe battling multiple fire fronts, threatening major cities in unprecedented conditions
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