ARCACHON, France — Large forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 80,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat.
Some 38 square miles have been consumed by the blaze that has raged since Wednesday near Cap Ferret on France’s Atlantic coast. Located 37 miles from Bordeaux, the peninsula normally 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, some aboard small water taxis and others on larger boats.
The EU comes to the rescue
Hundreds of French firefighters have been deployed and additional ground and aerial reinforcements were sent Friday to tackle the blaze. Meanwhile, another major wildfire burned farther 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.
Spain struggles amid a heatwave
In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time as the blazes in Madrid and the nearby province of Ávila prompted the evacuation of some 20,000 people from towns.
The national emergency means that the nation’s interior ministry, which controls police and security forces, has taken charge of overseeing the firefighting efforts that are being fanned by a heat wave. Temperatures are expected to top 102 degrees in parts of Spain.
The two major fires west of Madrid merged into one single blaze that had quickly charred morethan 11 square miles by Friday afternoon. Regional president Isabel Díaz-Ayuso called it the worst in Madrid’s history.
The regional government of Madrid, which spans a wide area around the city, said around 18,000 people had been evacuated from different villages and towns west of the capital.
Meanwhile, a blaze in Ávila, less than two hours northwest of Madrid, had consumed 34 square miles, causing another 1,500 people to flee.
“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 residents were preventively evacuated in Ávila, told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE.
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.
“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa said before he and his neighbors were evacuated from the village of Chapinería, located less than an hour’s drive west of Madrid.
Strong winds complicate efforts
In one week, Spain has had the worst fires on record for both the regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid.
Firefighters were still trying to extinguish Spain’s second-largest ever fire in the Guadalajara province of Castilla La Mancha after it had destroyed some 120 square miles over the last week. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.
Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen 440 square miles already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025.
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.
“The day has been complicated by winds that reach 31 mph and high temperatures,” Grande-Marlaska said.
Sicily is burning
In Italy, wildfires continued to ravage parts of Sicily, with the central-western province of Agrigento particularly hard hit.
Fueled by temperatures that have topped 104 degrees, 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.
Blumberg, Petrequin and Wilson write for the Associated Press. Petrequin reported from Paris and Wilson from Barcelona, Spain. Alicia León in Chapinería, Spain, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
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