COTIGNAC, FRANCE – JULY 21: Bystanders watch smoke and flames from a wildfire on July 21, 2026 in Cotignac, France. More than 1,000 firefighters have been called in to control a fast-moving wildfire that has burned more than 2,500 hectares in southern France. (Photo courtesy of FBM Media/Getty Images)
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Wildfires have ripped through southern France and spread to Spain, forcing more than 300,000 people to evacuate ahead of another heatwave expected this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to hold a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is scheduled to visit fire-hit areas in Valencia, eastern Spain.
The fire that broke out in the Gironde department in southwestern France on Wednesday burned 42,000 hectares and forced the largest evacuation in France’s history, according to French broadcaster France 24 and local news outlets. The wildfires also affected 77,000 hectares in the Avila and Toledo regions of western Madrid.
“The situation remains very unfavorable,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Saturday’s X broadcast, according to Google Translate. “At the beginning of the night, the fire again became very virulent and unpredictable in the Gironde, generating its own winds and spreading erratically towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. By the end of the night, it had subsided somewhat.”
On Saturday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecorne said the wildfires were a “historic situation” for the country, with nearly 100,000 hectares burned at the time, an “unprecedented” level.
Firefighters from the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME) and Castilla y León fight a fire in the forest next to the La Atalaya residential area in El Tiembro, 80 km west of Madrid, during a wildfire that has burned up to 25,000 hectares on July 25, 2026. Firefighters in Spain were hoping to bring a wildfire raging near Madrid under control on Saturday, but officials warned that extreme winds could fan the flames further. The deadliest wildfire in Madrid region history rages west of the Spanish capital, with authorities ordering around 60,000 people to evacuate or shelter in place. (Photo by Cesar MANSO/AFP via Getty Images)
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Nuñez said 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and nearly 1,200 police have been called in to contain the blaze since the disaster began.
In an update on the situation, the main government center for the Bordeaux region, known as the Gironde department, said on Monday: “The situation remained generally stable overnight from Sunday to Monday, with no major developments to report.”
The huge fire has been classified as an extremely dangerous and rare “photocumulonimbus cloud,” a type of fire cloud that generates its own winds and whirlwinds and is “unstable and uncontrollable,” fire chief Nicolas Braz told AFP.
Man-made landscapes make fires worse
Stefan Doerr, professor of wildfire science at Swansea University, said climate change and poor landscape management were contributing to increased fire severity.
“Climate change is playing a big role in this, and better management certainly means we need to better manage the landscape to prevent fire propagation,” Doerr told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
Abandoned agricultural land in parts of southern Europe, particularly the Mediterranean Sea and parts of Madrid, has spread flammable grass, shrubs and dense forest, making fires difficult to contain during periods of extreme heat and drought, Doerr said.
“It simply means that when we have these extreme weather events and extreme droughts, if a fire does occur, it’s much more difficult to fight,” Doerr said.
Additionally, Doerr told CNBC that Europe has been shaped by thousands of years of agriculture and human activity, and many forests now consist of dense plantations of coniferous trees that are prone to wildfires.
TOP SHOT – An Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss aircraft drops water on a wildfire burning near San Martín de Valdeiglesias, about 70 km west of Madrid, on July 26, 2026. Spanish firefighters today battled a new front of fire near the coastal city of Valencia, where at least 15,000 people have been evacuated. In the western region of Madrid, two separate wildfires merged into a large blaze on July 24th, and were about to merge with another fire in neighboring Castile and León. Authorities described the fire as the “worst ever” for the Madrid region, which has already burned 25,000 hectares in Madrid and the neighboring Avila province, forcing more than 60,000 people (a revised figure) to evacuate their homes. (Photo by Cesar MANSO/AFP via Getty Images)
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“If we had a natural landscape, we would actually have a lot less flammable forest, at least in some places,” he said. “It’s man-made. It’s not that the plants aren’t natural, but the way the landscape looks now is completely man-made.”
Doerr said Europe was not necessarily unprepared for wildfires, as wildfires occur every year in the Mediterranean region.
“What’s really unusual is that we’ve had three heatwaves in a row now and the landscape is completely dry, which means that once a fire ignites, it can develop into a very serious fire,” he said. “The sheer scale of current events exceeds our ability to respond effectively.”
Mr Doerr acknowledged that Europe was increasing its firefighting capabilities, but argued that not enough progress had been made in reducing the risk of wildfires before they started.
“This essentially means better land management, better fire preparedness, better communication, and even better science. This is compared to improving firefighting resources, which, as we currently see, are stretched too far,” he said.
