France orders 4,000 more evacuated as fires displace a third of a million across southwest Europe | World News - EUROPE SAYS
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France – French authorities ordered 4,000 more peopleevacuated from tourist sites along its Atlantic coaston Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning. . .
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France – French authorities ordered 4,000 more peopleevacuated from tourist sites along its Atlantic coaston Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on avast wildfire west of Bordeaux. Fresh flames erupted later Tuesday near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said. A fleet of 23 planes and helicopters – up from 18 – dropped water and fire retardant as crews fought to keep the renewed flames from spreading. “The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said. She said about 60,000 residents who were evacuated as a precaution from Le Haillan and parts of Mérignac and Eysines outside Bordeaux’s ring road could return Tuesday. The opposing movements – thousands ordered out of coastal resorts while those returning told to be on the alert – underscored how precarious the fire’s hold remained. Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by huge wildfires. Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with several blazes still burning out of control, including the largest in its recorded history. Even so, Spanish authorities began lifting evacuation and stay-at-home orders for thousands of people after firefighters made progress overnight. The Gironde fire has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said it is “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation operation carried out in the country outside war. The precautionary evacuation order covered campsites, holiday villages, tourist residences and leisure parks around the resort of Lacanau, Gironde regional authorities said. “We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told the BFMTV broadcast network Tuesday. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures. ”At its most violent, the Gironde blaze created a gargantuanblack thundercloud, electrified and lit from within. It generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front. The phenomenon, known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, was the first recorded in France. More than 448 square miles have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.