Large forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate at estimated 80,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast.
Some 100 square kilometers (38 square miles) have been consumed by the blaze that has raged since Wednesday near Cap Ferret. Located just 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux, the peninsula offers stunning landscapes and sandy beaches as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts.
More than 60,000 residents in France escaped the area, and both France and Spain have asked fellow European Union members for help.
“It’s quite impressive and even frightening,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.”
More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The new evacuations were carried out by road, with boat shuttles provided for people who could not travel by their own means.
Around 1,500 people who fled the peninsula arrived by sea in the city of Arcachon in an unprecedented operation. Some arrived aboard small water taxis, while others were transported on larger boats by professional operators.
Town hall officials organized a reception area where they provided coffee, fruit and water, and some evacuees who arrived early finished their night sleeping on the floor.
The EU comes to the rescue
Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed and additional ground and aerial reinforcements were sent Friday to tackle the blaze. Meanwhile, another major wildfire burned further south down the coast. It remained uncontained as strong winds did not help firefighters.
Authorities believe the cause of both fires was accidental.
France’s Interior minister Laurent Nunez said 40,000 people have been evacuated in the Gironde department, and 23,000 in the Landes.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France will receive EU reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Italy and Greece are each sending two Canadair water-dumping airplanes.
“We are experiencing a dramatic situation, not just in several Spanish regions but also in neighboring countries,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X.
Southern Europe has seen multiple large fires this summer. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as quickly as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
Spain struggles to tackle multiple fires amid a heatwave
In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time after the blazes prompted the evacuation of some 20,000 people from villages near Madrid.
The national emergency in Spain means that the nation’s interior ministry, which controls police and security forces, has taken charge of overseeing the firefighting efforts by Spain’s regions as they struggle to battle multiple blazes that are being fanned by a heatwave. A large fire in the central province of Ávila in addition to the fires in the Madrid region prompted national authorities to step in.
“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa told The Associated Press before he and his neighbors were evacuated from the village of Chapinería, located less than an hour’s drive west of Madrid.
The regional government of Madrid, which spans a wide area around the capital city, said that around 18,000 people had been evacuated from different villages and towns west of the capital as multiple fires raged out of control late on Thursday.
“In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,” Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo, whose 1,500 residents were preventively evacuated in Ávila, told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE.
Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen 1,140 square kilometers (440 square miles) already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025.
Strong winds complicate efforts
Grande-Marlaska said that in addition to the major fires in Madrid and in Ávila that have required the national government to get directly involved, there are nine serious fires in other parts of Spain.
Temperatures are expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain on Friday, with a high of 44 C (111 F) in Almeria in the southeast.
Spanish television showed video taken by retreating residents of walls of flames topped by long plumes of smoke advancing through woods and scrublands. High winds and hilly terrain complicated efforts by firefighters, who combated the blazes with firetrucks and bulldozers.
This year’s fires include Spain’s second-largest ever fire that consumed some 320 square kilometers (120 square miles) in recent days in the province of Guadalajara north of Madrid. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.
Sánchez called on Wednesday for a pact between political parties to fight climate change that he said is key to adapting to a more fire-prone climate. Spain has experienced record temperatures in recent summers and forest fires of increasing violence.
Authorities have not identified the cause of the fires near Madrid. Fires can be caused by sparks from agricultural machinery, lightning strikes, an errant cigarette or even intentional arson.
Sicily is burning
In Italy, wildfires continued to ravage parts of Sicily, with the central-western province of Agrigento particularly hard hit.
Italy’s national fire department reported late Thursday that it had mounted over 1,400 operations since last weekend, 240 of which were in the Agrigento area. By Friday, seven of Sicily’s nine provinces remained at the highest level of alert for wildfires, with only the eastern coastal provinces of Messina and Catania registering a lower risk level, the civil protection reported in its daily bulletin.
Fueled by temperatures that have topped 40C (104F), low humidity and winds, the blazes have forced scattered evacuations and were blamed for the death of a firefighter responding to a fire in Caltanissetta.
Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing severe heat waves across Europe. Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to health impacts and wildfires.
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Alicia León in Chapinería, Spain, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story. Petrequin reported from Paris. Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.
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