Wildfires in southwest Europe: What we know so far
More than 300,000 people have been evacuated to safety from their homes in France and Spain. Wildfires are rampaging through vast areas of land in
More than 300,000 people have been evacuated to safety from their homes in France and Spain. Wildfires are rampaging through vast areas of land in southwestern Europe, forcing France and Spain to evacuate more than 325,000 people from their homes. Some of the worst fires in France since World War II come just weeks after record-breaking heatwaves scorched Europe. Authorities have deployed thousands of firefighters to battle the blazes. On Sunday, France’s Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez, said about “115,000 hectares (284,171 acres) have burned in wildfires in France since the start of the year”. In Spain, 119,458 hectares (295,187 acres) of land have been burnt as of July 22, according to data from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). More than 150,000 hectares have burned across Spain since January, said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – that’s six times the area destroyed during the same period last year. Wildfires destroyed 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) of land in Europe in 2025 – up from 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) in 2022, according to the United Nations. What is the main cause of the wildfires and why are authorities struggling to contain them? What has happened? Since early July, wildfires have been burning across southern and western Europe, with France and Spain being the worst hit. About 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in France, about 75,000 people in Spain, and around 30,000 others there ordered to shelter in place, according to authorities. In Spain, a fast-moving wildfire in the Andalusia region killed at least 12 people on July 10. By July 20, the fires had spread hundreds of kilometres to the capital, Madrid. At least 10,000 people have been evacuated following wildfires in the central region of Madrid. On July 24, Spanish authorities declared a national emergency, saying two major blazes were “out of control”. Over the weekend, a separate blaze in Spain’s eastern Castellon province ravaged more than 4,300 hectares (10,625 acres), regional authorities said. “The fire is out of control, it’s very difficult to extinguish from a technical standpoint, especially because of the adverse weather conditions that will continue throughout the day,” the regional leader of Valencia, Juanfran Perez, told reporters near the site. The wildfire in Spain has now entered the Sierra de Espadan natural park, containing large forests of pine trees and cork oaks. In France, the wildfires are among the country’s worst since World War II and have particularly ravaged the Cap Ferret peninsula, an exclusive holiday destination on France’s southern Atlantic coast about 70km (43 miles) from Bordeaux. Reporting from Maubec, near Toulouse, Al Jazeera’s Nina Montagu-Smith said: “When I visited Arcachon, a seaside town just across the bay from Cap Ferret on Thursday last week, we could see the fires on the peninsula. Within hours, the sky had blackened and the smoke was thick over Arcachon town.” “All trains from Arcachon were cancelled, apparently due to an ‘electrical fault’,” she added.
The BriefWire