France and Spain continue battling wildfires as new heatwave looms
France and Spain are battling severe wildfires that have destroyed vast forest areas, with a new heatwave expected to complicate firefighting efforts.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that one forest fire in southwestern France has been contained, but a much larger one near Bordeaux continues to rage as Western Europe braces for new heatwaves this week. France and Spain are experiencing the worst wildfires in living memory, which have burned hundreds of hectares of woodland, destroyed properties, and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
Visiting a crisis center in Bordeaux, Macron warned that the coming weeks would be tough. The massive wildfire near Bordeaux has ravaged 42,000 hectares over the past six days, forcing 220,000 people to flee and destroying 240 homes. The blaze has created a rare pyrocumulonimbus cloud with lightning. A smaller fire in the Landes region, which had forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people, is now contained but remains dangerous.
In Spain, fires west of Madrid have forced some 60,000 people to evacuate. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the coming hours will be crucial. Some evacuees have lost everything, including a campsite near Navaluenga.
The European Union on Monday announced additional water-bombing planes for France. However, EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib warned that the fleet is stretched thin as extreme conditions loom for Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.
Since the start of the year, 150,000 hectares have burned in Spain and 115,000 in France. Earlier this month, 13 people were killed in a wildfire in southwestern Spain. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the fires an expression of the climate emergency. Spain's weather agency AEMET announced a new heatwave starting Wednesday, with temperatures up to 42°C in the northeast. In France, temperatures are expected to hit 40°C from Tuesday.
