More than 220,000 evacuated as ‘unprecedented’ wildfires spread near Madrid and Bordeaux

More than 220,000 people have been forced to flee the ‘unprecedented’ wildfires raging across France and Spain – including tens of thousands in suburbs around Madrid and Bordeaux.

Tourists escaped by car and boat when French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a popular spot on the Atlantic Coast.

They described huge ash clouds ‘basically blocking out the sun’, with one resident in a nearby village made to leave their home saying: ‘It’s totally apocalyptic.’

And there does not appear to be any sign of reprieve from the heat, with weather forecasts suggesting temperatures will rise sharply again next week.

Some 141,000 fled their homes in the Gironde and Landes regions in France, the French interior ministry said.

In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, according to the Spanish interior ministry.

Spain declared its first ever wildfire-related national emergency in response to the disaster.

Huge blazes merged outside Madrid, with regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso saying: ‘This is the worst wildfire in our region’s history.

‘It’s the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren’t letting up.’

In southwest France, around 110,000 people, many of them tourists, were told ⁠to leave as two major fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.

Interior minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster TF1 that fires were heading towards Bordeaux.

Yoan Urien, who fled late on Thursday after police ordered his neighbourhood in the town of Biscarrosse to evacuate, said it was possible to see the fires from his home.

‘We could see the clouds becoming darker and darker,’ ​the 26-year-old told Reuters.

Marie Duelz, a 51-year-old Belgian tourist vacationing at Cap Ferret, said she saw ‘a cloud of ash that was blocking the sun, basically’.

The other major fire, which began in the nearby village of Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to cut off the only road out of the peninsula and is the largest so far this season in France.

It has torn through more than 14,000 hectares of forest and destroyed more than 100 homes and one campsite, officials ​said.

‘It breaks my heart. Because it’s such a pleasant place to live, seeing it go up in smoke is truly sad,’ Corinne Paillaube said.

‘It’s totally apocalyptic,’ said Ambre Dubos, from the nearby Landes region.

In Spain, more than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate from towns in the mountains west of Madrid.

‘I had ⁠to run from my house. There was a ball of fire. If I’d taken five more minutes, it would have wiped us out,’ Enrique Martin said in a shelter in Cebreros, west of Madrid.

A third fire in Avila province was on the verge or may have already merged with the two in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters.

Spanish police said they had arrested one person and were investigating another suspected of starting that fire by using heavy machinery in a prohibited area.

The area west of Madrid, where many residents from the capital have second homes, is densely populated.

In just one development 43 homes ​had been destroyed, Diaz Ayuso said.

It is the second consecutive year that Spain has faced a particularly destructive fire season.

More than 29 major fires have broken out in Spain so far this year, damaging a surface area five times greater than at the same stage in 2025, when a record area was destroyed, Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said in ​a social media post.

Wildfires have burned more land in Europe already this year than the annual average in the past two ​decades, data shows as the world’s fastest-warming continent ⁠has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves so far this year.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms.

Greece was sending two firefighting aircraft to Spain, and Croatia provided a similar plane and staff to aid France while Italy dispatched a firefighting plane to Tunisia which also has wildfires.

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