Overview
- The fires intensified on Sunday and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, with about 220,000 moved from areas around Bordeaux and more than 75,000 evacuated in Spain while tens of thousands were told to shelter at home.
- Spain declared a national emergency for the blazes west of Madrid after multiple fires merged and regional officials said the main fire was beyond crews' capacity to contain, triggering large additional evacuations around Toledo and Ávila.
- France has deployed roughly 1,500 troops to assist evacuations and protection of homes, used an A400M military transport to drop retardant, and warned that the Gironde fire has burned record areas of forest approaching Bordeaux.
- European partners have sent water‑bombing aircraft and crews through the EU civil protection mechanism, but firefighters report exhaustion, erratic winds and fires generating their own extreme behaviour that complicates containment.
- The blazes have killed emergency personnel and at least one civilian, closed highways and rail lines, threatened vineyards and tourist resorts, and prompted investigations and arrests in suspected ignition cases as authorities plan long recovery and containment efforts.