Macron mobilises French military as ‘unprecedented’ wildfire approaches Bordeaux

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An "unprecedented" wildfire tearing through southwest France is heading towards the city of Bordeaux, an official said Friday, warning many thousands more people would probably be evacuated.

"In each of the municipalities affected by the fire's path, every resident, whether a regular inhabitant or a temporary resident, will receive an alert from us on their mobile phone... giving them the starting signal," said regional prefect Sophie Brocas, mentioning the town of Saint-Medard-en-Jalles northwest of Bordeaux. 

President Emmanuel Macron on Friday ordered the military to mobilise as wildfires ripped through France's southwest, threatening villages and approaching the city of Bordeaux, his aides said.

Some 110,000 people have been evacuated from areas threatened by wildfires in France's southwest that have scorched 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres), Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Friday.

Nunez pledged that French authorities would "do everything to protect" the city of Bordeaux, near to which the fires were raging.

French Prime Minister Sebastian Lecornu is to chair a government crisis meeting at 10:00pm (2000 GMT) over wildfires ripping through southern French regions, his office said in a statement.

He has called the ministers of the interior, defence, health, transport and environment to the meeting, announced after the government said 110,000 people had been evacuated because of the fires.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday is set to visit the zone near Madrid where a major wildfire is raging, his government has said

Sanchez will be accompanied by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska in the municipality of Cenicientos, where he will attend an emergency meeting, the government said in a statement.

A wildfire raging near Madrid that has forced thousands of evacuations is "at its peak" and impossible to control, Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government's emergency management chief, said Friday.

"The wildfire is at its peak and is currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain," he told reporters.

Spain has declared a national emergency after a series of blazes threatened communities near Madrid, forcing more than 10,000 people to evacuate. Firefighters continue to battle the flames as extreme heat and dry conditions make the fires difficult to contain.

the broadcaster’s Sarah Morris reports from Madrid.

At least 900 fires broke out in Tunisia over a 72-hour period, a senior official told reporters on Friday, as the country grapples with an intense heatwave.

Civil protection official Khalil Mechri said most of the blazes recorded between July 20 and 22 had been extinguished, though two major ones were still raging.

"These are not only forest fires but also brushland, crops, houses," he said, without offering details on the areas affected.

Their outbreak has coincided with exceptional heat. 

Spanish police have said they have arrested a man for allegedly setting off a vast fire in the Madrid region by using a farm vehicle despite a ban in the tinderbox conditions.

Another person was under investigation for the same incident, the Guardia Civil said on X, stating: "The cause that started (the fire) was a seriously negligent act through the use of heavy machinery in the area, where it was totally prohibited."

Spanish authorities have ordered the evacuation of 7,000 more people from two new localities west of Madrid that are threatened by wildfires.

Emergency messages were sent to the phones of people in the two villages affected. The evacuations come on top of 19,000 people in the Madrid region already told to leave their villages or remain in their homes with windows and doors sealed because of the fires. 

"There is little time left" before the major 6,000-hectare fire in the Madrid region "merges" with the 9,000-hectare fire in Castile and León, the regional governor of Castile said.

“This is very bad news,” added Nicanor Sen Vélez during a press briefing, referring to the fire in Ávila, in Castile and León, and the fire in the Madrid region, which initially consisted of several separate blazes that have now merged to form a single fire, driven by strong winds and high temperatures.

On Friday, firefighters in France's Var department were called out several times to the Pontevès fire, on the fourth day of their operations to tackle the blaze, which has spread across 2,700 hectares and has not yet been “contained”.

These flare-ups are “fanned by the south-easterly wind”, according to reporting fire department.

They “threaten the villages of Pontevès and Barjols”, stated the Var prefecture, adding that evacuation notices had been sent to residents of certain neighbourhoods in both villages.

The fire raging to the north of the Arcachon Bay area has already “destroyed” more than 12,500 hectares of forest and led to the evacuation of 44,000 people in two days, the Gironde prefecture said.

“Weather conditions remain unfavourable, with wind gusts expected to reach up to 80 km/h and dry thunderstorms that could break out locally,” the prefecture emphasised in its latest update.

The initial evacuations mainly involved tourists, but thousands of residents are now having to flee the shores of the Arcachon Basin, which are threatened by a blaze covering 10,000 hectares, gripped by the anxiety of having to leave their homes.

In a sports hall in Andernos-les-Bains, evacuees from the towns of Lège-Cap-Ferret and Le Porge have found refuge, food and drink, and a little comfort.

But amongst them is Maria Lalanne, a 90-year-old lady from Lège who has no family to help her; she seems shaken by the events. In the rush to leave, she had to leave her hearing aid and glasses at home.

“I have heart problems, high blood pressure, and eye problems”, she told reporters. “I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know what state my house is in, whether it’s burnt down … Yesterday, the trees behind it were starting to catch fire.”

Two of the three wind-fuelled wildfires burning west of Madrid had merged into a single blaze, regional emergency services wrote on X.

Officials had earlier said the main priority for firefighters was to prevent the fires' "convergence".

From the Temple of Debod park, on the western edge of central Madrid overlooking the city's outskirts, a thick plume of grey smoke could be seen rising above the horizon as wildfires burnt about 60 kilometres (40 miles) away.

At least 19,000 people in the Madrid region have been evacuated or ordered to remain indoors due to wildfires that have become the worst in the region's history, regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso said.

The fires in the densely populated area around the Spanish capital have burned around 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres), Ayuso told reporters.

She said that while an area of this size being burnt in other, more rural regions "would not be considered so significant", in Madrid "with such a high concentration of homes and people, it is a catastrophe".