Two firefighting helicopters collided on Sunday (August 2, 2026) while battling a wind-driven wildfire in the Porto Germeno area, west of Athens. Footage showed one of the aircraft crashing to the ground.

Each helicopter was carrying a two-person crew, the Greek fire department said. A search-and-rescue operation was underway. Authorities did not immediately provide information on the crews’ condition.

The collision underscored the continuing danger at the most volatile front of Europe’s wildfire emergency.

The continent’s crisis split into three stark fronts: strong winds drove flames deeper into the Athens region and forced fresh evacuations, France guarded a still-burning scar four times the size of Paris, and Spain’s major fires stopped advancing.

The most immediate danger was in Greece. Flames spread through western Attica, the region around Athens, threatening communities and an industrial district outside Megara as violent gusts prevented firefighting aircraft from collecting water from the sea.

The danger carried grim resonance in a region where the 2018 Mati wildfire killed 104 people, Europe’s deadliest blaze this century.

Farther west, containment brought no end to the emergency. France’s largest wildfire remained held within its perimeter after forcing 224,000 people to flee in what may have been the country’s largest civilian evacuation outside wartime.

Hot spots still burned within a 420-square-kilometer scar, thousands remained unable to return home, and nearly 3,000 firefighters were deployed against the Gironde megafire and a second, still-uncontained blaze in Provence.

Together, fires in France and Spain have driven roughly a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied communities at the height of the European summer and stretched emergency services across simultaneous disasters.

Record fire damage underscores Europe’s growing wildfire threat

The mass evacuations in France and Spain are the latest measure of a wildfire threat growing across Europe.

The continent entered 2026 after its worst fire year on record, with more than 10,000 square kilometres burned in 2025. Over the past four decades, wildfires have been linked to nearly 800 deaths across much of Europe, according to the European Environment Agency.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. It has warmed more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Human-caused climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind this year’s French blazes at least twice as likely, scientists at World Weather Attribution found in a rapid analysis conducted while the fires were still burning.

Gale-force winds cripple aerial assault near Athens

Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were deployed, but gale-force winds drove flames through dry forest and crippled the response, preventing some aircraft from reaching the sea to collect water.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli as smoke rose over the mountains. Crews were particularly concerned about Porto Germeno, a seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was briefed on the operation.

The fire began Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of Athens. Firefighters evacuated 254 people by sea Friday and another 12 Saturday — often the last escape route when fire and smoke cut the few roads from coastal communities.

Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros estimated the blaze had affected 40 to 50 square kilometres, though authorities had issued no official figure.

Elsewhere in Greece, flames threatened homes on Kefalonia, forcing evacuations from inland communities as aircraft made water drops over the Ionian island. Firefighters battled another blaze near Nea Tenedos in Halkidiki.

Earlier this week, two firefighters died fighting a fire on Crete, while a third was killed in the Peloponnese.

“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” local farmer Minas Tzortzanis said on Saturday (August 1, 2026). “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”

France guards vast megafire scar against renewed flames

In southwestern France, the Gironde megafire remained held within its perimeter on Sunday (August 2, 2026) but continued to burn after scorching 420 square kilometres of forest in 10 days.

“The fire is now fixed, which does not mean that the fire is extinguished,” the Gironde prefecture said, using the French firefighting term for a blaze whose advance has been stopped.

The region remained under France’s highest red forest-fire alert. Dry conditions, soaring temperatures around Bordeaux and afternoon winds threatened to rekindle the flames.

In Le Porge, local officials said about 150 homes were destroyed. Mechanic Matthieu Plessis returned Saturday to the ruins of a house that had been in his family for seven generations.

“There are places I don’t even recognise anymore,” he said. “You don’t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where.”

Firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were expected on Sunday (August 2, 2026) and Monday (August 3, 2026) to reinforce the operation.

Provence fire stops advancing but remains uncontained

In southeastern France, nearly 1,500 firefighters battled a separate blaze in the Var department that tore through about 18 square kilometres in little more than a day.

The Gros Bessillon fire was stabilised on Sunday after its perimeter held overnight, but it remained uncontained. Some 2,500 people were evacuated as flames threatened nearby communities.

It was the fourth major fire to strike central Var since July 19. A smaller blaze near Brignoles earlier in the week forced actor George Clooney and his family, along with about 700 other residents, to evacuate before it was brought under control.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said France’s fires were generally under control but warned that conditions remained volatile. He appointed a national coordinator to oversee reconstruction in fire-ravaged areas.

More than 1,170 square kilometres have burned across France this year.

Spain’s deadly fire siege eases as crews guard perimeters

Spain’s major fires — part of a season that has killed at least 13 people, produced the country’s largest recorded wildfire and prompted a national emergency — were no longer advancing Sunday.

In Zamora province near the Portuguese border, more than 20 ground and aerial units guarded the perimeter of the Fermoselle fire against flare-ups in the rugged Arribes del Duero landscape. Most evacuees had returned home, according to local media.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a national pact to confront wildfires, warning that climate change is making them increasingly destructive.

Published – August 02, 2026 10:42 pm IST

Wildfires raged across southern Europe on Monday (July 6, 2026), forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes and prompting officials to ban spectators from a stage of the storied Tour de France cycling race.

Hundreds of firefighters are battling blazes that have devastated more than 19,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land — an area more than twice the size of Manhattan — across Portugal, Spain, France and Greece.

Rising temperatures are predicted to reach 40°C in parts of a region still suffering the aftermath of a recent record-breaking heatwave.

In southwestern France near the city of Perpignan, 700 hundred firefighters backed by special aircraft battled to control a “gigantic” blaze spreading in a hard-to-reach remote area, with more than 10,000 local residents evacuated.

Fanned by the wind, intense heat and exceptionally dry air, the fire has nearly tripled in size since early Sunday (July 5, 2026), devouring 4,600 hectares and leaving a firefighter and a resident injured, local authorities said.

“The fire came within 300 metres of the houses. We were taken aback by how fast it spread, it was staggering — bordering on panic,” said Patrice, a 53-year-old resident of the village of Trevillach, who did not wish to give his surname.

“We started seeing smoke around 10:30 pm, then it kept coming closer and closer. Someone from the town hall knocked on our door around 1:00 am to tell us to leave,” said Charlotte Pignol, 30, who was among the first to be evacuated from her home early on Sunday (July 5, 2026).

The blazes come shortly after a heatwave in June, one of Europe’s worst, during which thousands of excess deaths were registered and which would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.

With the mercury set to rise again in the coming days, authorities expressed alarm that the annual summer wildfire season had started a month early.

“Climate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July,” said French fire service Colonel Eric Belgioino as he appealed to people near the Pyrenees inferno to take precautions to avoid starting fires.

“The season is going to be long for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us,” he pleaded.

In France, officials announced that Monday’s (July 6, 2026) third stage of the Tour de France cycling race through the Pyrenees would take place without spectators who normally line the routes of the storied competition.

The stage, which on Monday (July 6 2026) will see cyclists ride from Spain into France, “will be limited to the passage of the riders only and the vehicles essential to organizing the race” on French territory, the regional prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe told reporters.

“The public is asked not to go near the route or to the finish area,” he said. “In other words, and I regret having to say this, it will be, in France at least, a stage of the Tour de France without spectators.”

In Greece, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in Thessaloniki in the north of the country over the weekend, forcing authorities to evacuate the surrounding area and to warn households to keep their windows closed.

In Spain, a fire near the northeastern Costa Brava coast burned more than 2,200 hectares in two days and firefighters said their efforts would be “complicated” by rising temperatures and the many “smoking hotspots” within the fire’s perimeter.

In Portugal, emergency services said they had controlled “80%” of a wildfire that has devastated some 13,000 hectares of forest and scrub land in the north of the country.

Elsewhere, major fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub land on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, authorities said.

Regions across Portugal, Spain and southern France have stepped up heat alerts for the coming days.

On Monday (July 6, 2026) the latest heatwave was expected to move north, with forecasters saying it could last until next weekend.

Published – July 06, 2026 02:32 pm IST