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Key developments
• Extreme conditions: Temperatures will soar in France and Spain this week, with no rain forecast to relieve the conditions fueling wildfires in the hardest-hit regions of both countries. French authorities warn that an “intense” heat wave will peak Wednesday, and Spain’s will last until Sunday.
• In France: The heat is likely to make already dangerous fire conditions much worse, and face masks have been issued in areas affected by air pollution.
• In Spain: The wildfires ravaging an area just west of Madrid are “improving little by little,” local authorities say. More than 63,000 people have been evacuated from their homes near the Spanish capital. In eastern Spain, ordnance left over from the country’s civil war almost a century ago poses an additional threat.
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CNN is tracking the spread of the fires and the scale of the devastation.
Footage depicts ravaged village at the center of France's wildfire crisis
Before and after images show the devastating impact of wildfires on the Gironde region in France. The town of Le Porge was evacuated as flames approached, forcing the majority of 3,500 residents to leave their homes behind.
Here’s how planes and helicopters help fight wildfires
As wildfires rage in Spain and France, authorities have deployed planes and helicopters to help fight the flames.
Helicopters like the Blackhawks from the Czech Republic seen scooping water west of Bordeaux yesterday, use a bucket suspended by a cable controlled from the cockpit.
Other types of helicopters used in Europe can carry about 2,600 gallons.
Helicopters can use lakes, rivers, reservoirs or large ponds — bodies of water deep enough and with enough surface area to allow the aircraft to safely hover and dip the bucket. But helicopters are limited in how fast they can travel when carrying water, which is why finding nearby water sources is important.
Water scooper aircraft are also used to fight wildfires. They’re amphibious planes that fly close to the surface of the water — typically lakes or reservoirs, but sometimes rivers — scooping up water as they skim across. They can carry 700 to 1,600 gallons per load and need large bodies of water — at least 5 feet deep, UAFA says.
Water-dropping aircraft are just part of the aerial response. Fixed-wing airtankers carry thousands of gallons of fire retardant — a usually bright-colored substance that coats vegetation and slows the spread of flames, or water mixed with chemical enhancers.
These aircraft are typically loaded at airports or airbases before carrying out their mission.
But key to all these operations is safety. Aircraft need clear, unobstructed access to water sources, which means the public — especially boaters and swimmers — should stay away during operations, or move away quickly if they see such an aircraft approaching.
Winery near Bordeaux prepares for possible evacuation
At the Château Smith Haut Lafitte outside of Bordeaux, France, winery staff are preparing for the unprecedented as a wildfire rages nearby.
“It’s an experience we’ve never underwent before,” Ludovic Fradin, the deputy managing director of the winery, told CNN’s Paula Newton.
Fradin said that the winery – which includes a five-star hotel – hasn’t received instructions to evacuate the premises just yet, but staff are preparing for the worst.
“We are on hold,” Fradin said. “It’s quite a scary and anxious situation, but we are ready to move if it is necessary and to try to save people and animals.”
Fradin said that the Château Smith Haut Lafitte has developed a plan in case staff need to move their livestock, which includes cows and llamas. In the meantime, the winery is providing firefighters with pastries and water.
The fire’s proximity to France’s famous vineyards near Bordeaux has caused alarm throughout the wine-loving world. Château Smith Haut Lafitte produces some of the most highly regarded - and expensive - wines.
Forest fires often cause ripe grapes to take on a bitter taste from smoke, an issue known as “smoke taint” in the wine industry. On Saturday, wine expert Nicolle Croft said that she’d received many calls from anxious observers about possible harms to the 2026 vintage.
However, Croft told CNN that the grapes around Bordeaux aren’t yet ripe enough to be harmed by smoke. “The grapes are like very hard, small peas,” she said. “They aren’t absorbing any aromas.”
However, if the fires continue for longer, the smoke may become a problem. Dr. Phil Crews, a winemaker and chemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told CNN on Saturday that as grapes ripen, their sugars could bind with phenols in smoke. The resulting taint is “ashy, foul tasting and smelling,” Crews said.
“If the wind is blowing in the direction of the vineyard, then there’s going to be a problem,” said Crews.
24,000 evacuees in Spain allowed to return home
About 24,000 of the 63,000 people who had been evacuated amid the wildfires in Spain have been allowed to return home, according to Francisco Martín, the Spanish Government Delegate in the Madrid region. Lockdown restrictions were eased on another 20,000 people in the region.
“Right now, we are in the process of bringing the wildfire under control,” Martín said. “We are moving closer to containing it, as its perimeter has not advanced for some time.”
Earlier in the day, officials said wildfires raging just west of Madrid were slowly improving, leading to authorities feeling more optimistic. However, about 6,000 hectares (23 square miles) burnt overnight in the greater Madrid area, taking the total area scorched to about 131 square miles, according to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid.
The France and Spain wildfires in numbers, as thousands evacuated
Hundreds of thousands of people across France and Spain have been evacuated from their homes in recent days, as wildfires across the countries have continued to blaze.
Around 220,000 people have been evacuated in the French department of Gironde, authorities said earlier in the week.
Another 36,000 people were evacuated from the region of Landes, with roughly 3,000 people instructed to leave their homes in the region of Var, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday.
More have been evacuated since then - roughly 4,000 people have been told to leave the popular tourist area of Lacanau in Gironde today, according to the French public broadcaster Franceinfo. This may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation, Nuñez said.
But 60,000 people from three towns in Gironde - just a few miles from Bordeaux city limits - will be allowed to return home.
In Gironde, roughly 42,000 hectares of land had been burned by Sunday, according to Nuñez. Around 3,600 hectares had also been burned in Landes, he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that “the situation we are dealing with today is the most severe we have ever recorded, the toughest since the Second World War.”
“More than 160,000 hectares have already burned, and the season is far from over,” he said.
Only three out of 45 areas across France are experiencing “average” air quality, according to Atmo France, a network of air quality monitoring associations.
In Spain, at least 63,152 people have been forced to evacuate their homes in the country’s central regions of Madrid, Toledo and Avila, the Spanish interior ministry said yesterday. But today, at least 24,000 people were allowed to return, authorities said.
The total area scorched in the Madrid region alone is around 34,000 hectares, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid, said this morning. The Burgohondo wildfire - the largest ever recorded in Spain - has scorched more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) in Spain’s southern Ávila province.
CNN’s Issy Ronald, Pierre P Bairin, Pau Mosquera, Joseph Ataman and Hira Humayun contributed to this reporing.
Donations pour in to help people stuck at French relief centers
Aid group French Popular Relief has received generous donations of relief items at their centers – so much so that they have had to turn some people’s gifts away.
“There is too much generosity with material things,” Lise Toussaint, national bureau member of the group told CNN’s Max Foster.
“We have more than everything we need,” she said of relief supplies. Now, she said, they need financial assistance to help those affected rebuild their lives and move forward once the fires are put out.
There are people who lost their homes, their belongings, and their means of transportation, affecting their ability to work.
“We have to help them rebuild a new life,” she said.
Toussaint said many people had to evacuate with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Particularly heartbreaking, she said, was seeing the elderly people who had to evacuate, leaving behind a home full of decades of memories and family souvenirs.
“All their life is burned, not just their houses,” she said. “It’s more than walls.”
Residents of three Gironde towns can return home, authorities say
Some residents of three fire-affected towns near Bordeaux were given the all-clear to return home, according to an announcement from the Prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde.
60,000 people from Eysines, Mérignac and Le Haillan will be able to return home. The towns are only a few miles from the city limits of Bordeaux. Twenty other villages and towns nearby remain under evacuation orders.
“It looks like a war zone”: Spain’s worst wildfire leaves more than 50,000 hectares burned
The smell of burned wood is strong and unrelenting. It’s hardly surprising: the forests south of the town of Cebreros, in Spain’s Ávila province, have been left completely devastated.
The Burgohondo wildfire — the largest ever recorded in Spain after scorching more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) — has burned everything in its path across southern Ávila province.
The fire remains out of control, although firefighters are racing against the clock to contain it. Conditions could become even more challenging tomorrow, as Spain braces for the fourth heat wave of the summer.
The town’s 3,300 residents have been under lockdown since the end of last week because of the fire’s proximity.
He speaks from inside his small restaurant in the town center, which was finally able to reopen today after authorities ordered it to remain closed during the days of lockdown.
He says that while the area is accustomed to sporadic wildfires during the summer, he has never witnessed anything on this scale.
Sitting beside him, Vanesa says she does not know whether she will be able to return home. She lives in the neighboring town of El Tiemblo, about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) to the south. It is another of the communities placed under lockdown by authorities.
CNN team in Gironde sees local volunteers helping put out the flames
As France’s southwest region braces for temperatures that could exceed 100 Fahrenheit on Wednesday, firefighters and first responders continue to battle wildfires that have already left more than 200,000 people displaced.
Travelling alongside officials from the Gironde Fire Department, our team witnessed the scale of the disaster wrought by the fires: miles of forest land charred and blackened, smoke seeping from the scorched earth beneath, and homes completely destroyed.
An area typically full of holidaymakers at this time of year, has instead become a ghost town. While many fires in this immediate region have now been contained, officials tell us some are already rekindling, with temperatures only set to intensify this week.
Fire trucks line the long and winding roads into the heart of the disaster zone, as aerial water-bombers fly overhead. But there are also local volunteers who have stayed behind, organizing to support first responders, and using whatever means they have to put out flames in the hope of saving their community.
Most of France suffering poor air quality as wildfires continue
As wildfires continue to ravage areas across France, authorities are warning residents across most of the country to be cautious of poor air quality, and are urging people to stay indoors if possible.
Only three out of 45 areas across France are currently experiencing “average” air quality, according to Atmo France, a network of air quality monitoring associations in the country. Ten areas are experiencing “bad” air quality, it says.
Tomorrow, air pollution is forecast to be even worse, with only one city - Brest in northwestern France - currently predicted to have “average” air quality, according to Atmo France. At least 24 of the 45 areas are expected to experience “bad” air quality, it says.
The department of Hérault in southern France - which includes Montpellier - warned people on Sunday about an episode of “atmospheric pollution” because of the wildfires, suggesting that people limit any “intense activities” outside.
Yesterday, the department of Lozère, also in southern France, described an “episode of pollution” caused by “fine particles in the atmosphere.” It also suggested that people avoid or reduce intense physical activity, both indoors and outdoors.
Richard Pope, an atmospheric scientist, told CNN yesterday that the air pollution in Bordeaux has spiked to six times the levels described as safe by the World Health Organization.
CNN’s Joseph Ataman and Billy Stockwell contributed to this reporting.
Climate scientist takes eerie photo, before fleeing the wildfires in southwestern France
A photo taken by climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf on a family vacation shows a child playing on a French beach against a dystopian background of orange skies and thick plumes of smoke.
Rahmstorf, a professor at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, was in Lacanau, in the Gironde region, last week, about 12 miles from where France’s huge blaze started last Wednesday.
He first noticed a plume of smoke rising over the land on Wednesday, while he was surfing in the ocean. Then on Friday, “the wind changed (direction) and the smoke was blown over Lacanau, which is when the eerie orange photos were taken,” he said.
He and his family decided to leave that evening, fleeing to Bordeaux. But even in the city, “the air was not clear and smelled of burning wood,” he told CNN.
Despite the visceral scenes and the curtailed vacation, Rahmstorf says the scale and ferocity of the wildfires does not surprise him. “I have been well aware for decades that such disasters would increasingly become our reality.”
On the ground video footage shows firefighters battling blazes in France
A firefighter has shared dramatic footage of rescue workers battling roaring flames in Gironde, southwest of France.
A firefighter has shared dramatic footage of rescue services battling roaring flames in Girode, southwest of France on his Instagram account.
The video, filmed on Monday using the Ray-Ban Meta recording glass and posted to Instagram, shows the emergency worker putting his glove on as a crew sprays water on the blaze. He can also be seen pointing out smaller patches of fire to others.
“The little reality on the field, we got a little heated, thank God no one injured, but it’s our job,” he writes in the caption.
"The climate alarm is blaring from every direction," UN climate chief says
Europe’s record breaking wildfires are reaching “national emergency levels,” said Simon Stiell, the United Nations’ Climate Change Executive Secretary in a statement Tuesday.
The wildfires are forcing mass evacuations and damaging local economies, he said. “With the mercury set to soar again this week, the awful costs of this climate crisis — both human and economic — are now reaching national emergency levels.”
Stiell called on the world to “leave coal, oil and gas behind faster, scale up renewables, and protect people where the impacts are already hitting hardest.”
"No signs of plant life": The aftermath of the biggest wildfire ever recorded in Spain
Wildfires have blazed in Spain in recent days, leaving blackened, scorched earth in their wake.
CNN’s Spain Correspondent Pau Mosquera is in the central Spanish municipality of Cebreros, close to Madrid.
Walking through an area destroyed by the flames, he describes not seeing a single sign of plant life after it was burned.
Take a look at our reporting from the scene in the video above.
In pictures: People take refuge in emergency shelters in France and Spain
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated amid the current wildfires in France and Spain, leading many to seek refuge in emergency shelters in Bordeaux and near Madrid.
Take a look at what’s happening at these sites in the pictures below:
Spain can "begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel," PM says of wildfires
Spain can “begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel” when it comes to the wildfires blazing in the country, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said earlier today.
A total of eight major wildfires are still active in Spain, he said, offering his government’s “full support, empathy and understanding” to those who have had to evacuate their homes or stay in under confinement orders.
Despite this optimism, the leader also warned that “the days and hours ahead will be especially challenging,” in part because of a new heat wave that is set to occur in Spain this week.
More than 170,000 hectares of land have been burned in the wildfires so far, Sánchez said — a number six times larger than the area affected by wildfires this time last year.
Firefighters battle wildfires in Spain and France, with heat waves imminent. Catch up
Firefighters are still battling wildfires outside of Madrid and Bordeaux, with temperatures set to soar this week, and no rain forecast to relieve the conditions fueling the fires.
If you’re just joining us, here’s the latest:
- Millions of FFP2 face masks have been sent to the regions in France affected by air pollution from wildfires, the country’s Regional Health Agency said today.
- New drone footage has shown the devastating impact of the wildfires in the Gironde region in southwest France. In one village, at least 180 homes, which housed over 20% of the local population, have burned down.
- Meanwhile in Spain, the wildfires just west of Madrid are “improving little by little,” according to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid.
- Heat waves are expected in both France and Spain in the coming days, the fourth such occurrence in Europe this summer.
CNN’s Laura Paddison, Joseph Ataman, Elina Baudier Kim, Niamh Kennedy, Issy Ronald and Pau Mosquera contributed to this reporting.
Fears of smoke inhalation prompt authorities to distribute millions of masks in France
Millions of FFP2 face masks have been sent to the regions in France affected by air pollution from wildfires, the country’s Regional Health Agency said today.
“Two million masks from state stockpiles have already been delivered to pharmacies — in addition to their existing stocks — in the Gironde and Landes departments,” the agency said, adding that another million masks will be delivered today.
Those with underlying health conditions, including pregnant people or those with respiratory or heart issues, should wear an FFP2 mask if they need to go outside, France’s Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said this morning.
“If you smell smoke and are in a department under alert, it is best to stay indoors. If you must go out and have underlying health issues, such as respiratory or heart conditions, you should wear an FFP2 mask,” she told the radio station France Inter.
New drone footage shows charred forests and heavy smoke in villages in southwest France
New drone footage has laid bare the devastating impact of the wildfires which have been raging in southwest France.
The footage filmed in the Gironde region shows charred forests and dense smoke rising through the air.
Entire villages like this one, Le Porge, have been all but destroyed by the flames. Over 180 houses have been destroyed in the village, accounting for over 20% of the local population, the village’s mayor, Martial Zaninetti told French radio on Tuesday,
The majority of the village’s 3,500 residents were evacuated from the area by the authorities, unable to save their homes from the flames.
Nearly 8,000 hectares of forest have also been lost, according to Zainetti, who stayed to help coordinate the emergency response. Zainetti said emergency teams have been hard at work to try and secure the village so inhabitants can safely return soon.
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