French authorities have ordered nearly 4,000 people to evacuate from tourist sites on the Atlantic coast as higher temperatures threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.
The new evacuations deepened a wildfire emergency of exceptional scale across south-western Europe. Fires in France and Spain have forced roughly 330,000 people to evacuate while Spain entered its fourth heatwave of the summer with several blazes still out of control, including its largest on record.
Firefighters had held the French blaze in check through a calm night, bringing flare-ups near coastal dunes under control and keeping the burned area unchanged at 420 square kilometres (162 square miles).
Authorities described the Gironde fire as stabilised, not fixed — meaning it could still spread again as temperatures rose and humidity fell.
The precautionary evacuation order covered campsites, holiday villages, tourist residences and leisure parks around the resort of Lacanau, including Lacanau Ocean and both shores of Lacanau lake, Gironde regional authorities said.
“We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told BFMTV on Tuesday. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.”
The blaze has been wildly unpredictable, transforming at times into a self-feeding fire storm as it burned through an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to flee their homes.
Although its advance has been halted, officials have repeatedly cautioned that smouldering vegetation and falling humidity could trigger fresh outbreaks.
Firefighters and military engineers resumed work early on Tuesday on tactical firebreaks designed to prevent the flames from spreading. Authorities said 103 kilometres (64 miles) of barriers have been created.
Ninety-three firefighters have been injured during the operation, the prefecture said.
A section of the A63 highway remained closed while rail traffic south of Bordeaux was suspended except on the route toward Toulouse.
The cautious progress in Gironde came as thousands of people began returning home after a separate wildfire in the neighbouring Landes region displaced more than 30,000 residents and tourists.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday evening that the Landes fire had been contained.
About 15,000 people were authorised to return home on Monday 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 tourist 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.
The gains in both fire zones faced an immediate test on Tuesday as temperatures began climbing again.
France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning from midday, forecasting inland temperatures of 33 to 35C. South-east 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.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by military emergency brigades and water-dropping aircraft continued battling several major wildfires in Spain, including the largest recorded in the fire-prone country.
Interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Tuesday that non-stop 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 heatwave of the summer on Tuesday, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some areas.
Authorities have evacuated 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 square kilometres (193 square miles), 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.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for a national pact to fight wildfires made worse by climate change.
