Firefighters kept a vast wildfire in southwest France in check overnight into Tuesday (July 28, 2026), bringing flare-ups near Atlantic coast dunes under control in a crucial reprieve before returning heat and falling humidity threaten to test their hold on the blaze.

The fire remained stabilised at 6 a.m. after a calm night and the burned area was unchanged at 420 sq. kilometres, the Gironde prefecture said. The emergency now stretches across southwestern Europe.

Fires in France have forced roughly 3,30,000 people to evacuate, while Spain entered its fourth heat wave of the summer on Tuesday (July 28, 2026) with several blazes still out of control, including the largest ever recorded in the country.

In France, several flare-ups were detected overnight north of Le Porge and in dunes north of Cap Ferret but were brought under control by firefighters, authorities said. “We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told BFMTV on Tuesday (July 28, 2026). “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.” The areas lie along the Atlantic coast west of Bordeaux, where crews have battled the blaze since it erupted near Saumos last week.

The overnight calm did not mean the danger had passed. The fire remained stabilised rather than fixed, meaning it could still spread again. The blaze, raging since last week, has been wildly unpredictable, transforming at times into a self-feeding firestorm as it burned through an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate homes and vacation accommodation. Even after 24 hours without further advance, officials warned that smouldering vegetation, rising temperatures and falling humidity could produce fresh outbreaks along the vast perimeter.

Firefighters and military engineers resumed work early Tuesday (July 28, 2026) on tactical firebreaks designed to prevent the flames from spreading. Authorities said 103 Km of firebreaks had been completed. Ninety-three firefighters have been injured while battling the blaze, the prefecture said. The A63 highway remained partly closed, while rail traffic south of Bordeaux was suspended except on the route toward Toulouse.

Thousands return as progress is made on second fire

The overnight holding action in Gironde contrasted with a clearer sign of progress in neighbouring Landes, where thousands of evacuees were allowed home after a separate wildfire was fixed. The fire had displaced more than 30,000 residents and vacationers.

“The fire is fixed, which is good news in the Landes,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday (July 28, 2026) evening. Regional authorities said that meant its advance had been stopped and no new fires were breaking out.

About 15,000 people were authorised to return home on Monday (July 27, 2026) night in Sanguinet, Parentis-en-Born and some parts of Biscarrosse. Residents of Biscarrosse’s aviation village and a large campground were among those allowed back, although several other neighbourhoods remained inaccessible.

The return marked a significant step for communities that emptied as flames swept through forests and tourist areas during the height of the summer vacation season. Authorities warned that the Landes fire was not extinguished. Residual hot spots, wind and drought could cause flare-ups, and surveillance and damping-down operations were expected to continue for days or possibly weeks.

Heat returns

The gains in both fire zones faced an immediate test on Tuesday (July 28, 2026) as temperatures began climbing again.

France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning from midday, forecasting inland temperatures of 33°C to 35°C. Southeast winds were expected across the department, with westerly sea breezes along the coast. More than 116,000 hectares have burned across France so far this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness helping fires spread and intensify in France and Spain, the European Union’s Copernicus climate service said.

Spain braces for worsening states

Hundreds of firefighters backed by military emergency brigades and water-dropping aircraft continued battling several major wildfires in Spain, including the largest ever recorded in the fire-prone country.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Tuesday (July 28, 2026) that nonstop work through the night left him “reasonably positive,” but warned that conditions could deteriorate as temperatures rose again. Spain’s national weather service said the country was entering its fourth heat wave of the summer on Tuesday (July 28, 2026), with temperatures expected to exceed 40°C in some areas.

Authorities have evacuated some 79,000 people and ordered another 30,000 to remain in their homes during an unprecedented crisis that prompted the government to declare a national emergency for wildfires for the first time. The greatest concern remained two large fires that had at times come close to merging into a single mega-blaze in wooded hills about an hour’s drive west of Madrid. Another fire in the eastern province of Castellon also forced mass evacuations.

A fire burning through hilly, rural terrain in Avila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching more than 500 sq. kilometres, the government said. That is five times the size of Barcelona. “Look at how the valley is burned. Look at the houses, the people,” said David Gonzalez, a 48-year-old gardener who used his van to deliver supplies to firefighters in Avila. “We are feeling a lot of anger and helplessness. It’s something inhuman,” he said.

Fires have burned 1,530 sq. kilometres this year in Spain — six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025, said Sara Aagesen, the Ecology Minister. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a national pact to fight wildfires made worse by climate change.

Published – July 28, 2026 03:32 pm IST

France sent a hulking military cargo plane to dump tonnes of flame retardants as it battled raging wildfires on Saturday (July 25, 2026) and slashed the final stage of the Tour de France to redeploy security personnel to the blazes that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

The latest wildfires in southern Europe this week have displaced more than 2,50,000 people, including some 70,000 people who were evacuated in central Spain. One man died in Manises, the municipality reported on its Facebook page, the first death so far in the blazes.

In France, the giant A400M transporter swooped in low, its long plume of ochre-coloured retardant trailing over drought-hit woodlands in the southwest as fire crews on the ground fought flames that authorities feared could spread toward the wine region city of Bordeaux.

Race organisers and the Paris police department announced a truncated 21st and final stage on Sunday (July 26, 2026) for the three-week Tour, France’s most famous annual sporting event, reflecting the immense strain that two large fires in the southwest are causing for emergency services.

Tour riders will race on Sunday (July 26, 2026) inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 89 kilometres (55 miles) — down by a third from the 133-kilometre (82.5-mile) route that had been planned. Part of the race’s security detail will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires”, according to the statement announcing the ”exceptional measures made necessary by the situation”.

Shifting winds raise concerns for Bordeaux

With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving flames closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, predicting a “long and very difficult” battle.

He said the fire was about 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux said the blaze grew into “a firestorm” on Friday after igniting earlier this week and cautioned that it “remains dangerous” even though firefighters were making progress.

The government mobilised soldiers to join fire crews and was rushing in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.

Authorities ordered people between the fire and Bordeaux to evacuate, including from parts of the city’s western suburbs and other towns and villages.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze became so strong on Friday (July 24, 2026) that it had begun generating its own winds. Firefighting teams were being reinforced with the addition of hundreds of soldiers and breathing masks to filter out potentially noxious smoke particles were being rushed to those exposed, Lecornu said.

In Bordeaux, authorities took in thousands of evacuees, offering them food and shelter in an exhibition centre, and the city’s mayor said it could be equipped to welcome as many as 10,000 people if that became necessary. The city’s airport said it remained open but that its bus and tram services were suspended.

Evacuation orders were sent with special alerts to mobile phones, instructing people to leave, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said. She said the fire had destroyed about 140 homes in the region.

Magnitude of the wildfires caught authorities off guard

The French military’s A400M transport plane, specially converted for firefighting, was a heavyweight new tool in the battle. It joined at least 18 other water- and retardant-dropping aircraft and helicopters that Nunez said were deployed in the Gironde region, working in rotation in the smoke-filled skies.

The virulence of the French and Spanish wildfires, fuelled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change, caught fire crews and authorities off guard.

Firefighters in Spain said the blazes spread so fast and violently that they could not be tackled head-on. In France, some people even fled by boat when flames swept through touristic towns on the Atlantic coast.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Javier Organista, a resident of El Tiemblo, west of Madrid, where fire charred a famed chestnut grove. “When we saw the flames coming into our town, surrounding us, leaving us with practically no way out, all the neighbours joined together to try to stop its advance.”

Published – July 26, 2026 11:01 am IST

Over 166,000 people were evacuated in France and Spain as unprecedented forest fires raged near Madrid and Bordeaux, a French city flanked by tourist havens and world-renowned vineyards.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday (July 24, 2026) asked the army to mobilise to help contain the worst wildfire the country has ever seen after seeking European Union help, as a local official warned the blaze was heading towards Bordeaux.

Some 44,000 people fled the upmarket Cap Ferret peninsula south of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast, with the only road threatened by flames.

Boats moved hundreds of people away from the fires, while others drove off the peninsula, known for its millionaire residences. More than 50 houses there have been destroyed.

At least 141,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France and 25,000 in the Madrid region, among them more than 1,200 elderly and disabled people, French and Spanish officials said.

Madrid and Paris have called in EU help as flames whipped up by strong winds and boosted by drought tore through tinder-dry forests.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France had never before seen such fires on this scale and pledged to “do everything” to protect Bordeaux.

Madrid fire ‘at its peak’

Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government’s emergency management chief, said the wildfire near the capital was “at its peak and is currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will go to the zone early Saturday (July 25) to visit the emergency coordination centre there.

His French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting of key ministers late on Friday (July 25) and said a total of 1,000 military personnel will be deployed to confront the flames, which have already ravaged 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres).

In addition, “1.5 million FFP2 masks will be delivered as of tonight to Gironde in order to protect the personnel involved and the populations exposed to smoke that is harmful to health,” he said on X.

About 40 of the 1,000 firefighters battling the Cap Ferret blaze have been injured, authorities said. Three firefighters have died in wildfires in France and Italy this week.

Two of the three major wildfires west of Madrid have merged into one, threatening a suburban town, said officials.

Some European regions have suffered at least two heatwaves since May. And drought blamed on human-fuelled climate change has heightened the threat from wildfires this year, the World Weather Attribution group said in a study published this week.

Emergency shelters were set up in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for tourists and residents left wondering what they would return to.

In the village of Andernos, Maria Lalanne, a 90-year-old from Lege Cap Ferret, sat on a camp bed in a gym without her glasses or hearing aid, which she had left behind.

“I have heart disease, high blood pressure and problems with my eyes,” she said. “I don’t know how long all this will last. I don’t know how my house is, whether it has burnt.”

EU help

Firefighting reinforcements have been sent from across France and, following appeals for assistance, the European Commission said it was sending four water-bombing planes to Spain and three to France.

The fires burning around Madrid are the worst in the region’s history, regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso said as she announced more evacuations.

Two fires west of Madrid had merged and were heading for the town of Navas del Rey, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital.

The new blaze was close to combining with another wildfire in neighbouring Castilla y Leon region, officials said.

“The smoke was incredibly thick,” Jose Cobos, who fled his home southwest of Madrid with his wife and three dogs, told Antena 3 television. “You couldn’t breathe.”

Spain has been hit by a series of wildfires in recent weeks.

The largest active fire was still burning in Guadalajara province, around 100 km north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares.

The French fires at Cap Ferret and around the town of Biscarosse have already burned more than 13,500 hectares while another 6,000 hectares has been lost in the Madrid region.

Italy has also been battling wildfires this week with dozens raging on the island of Sicily in recent days. One of the firefighter victims was killed in Sicily. Two others died tackling a fire near Bordeaux airport.

Published – July 25, 2026 05:07 am IST

More than ⁠100,000 hectares have burned in Spain so far this year, roughly equivalent to the country’s average ‌annual burned area over the past decade.
| Photo Credit: Reuters