Wildfire forces 40,000 tourists and residents to flee French peninsula

▶ Watch Video: Another major heat wave fueling European wildfires

Paris, France — Luggage-clad residents and tourists fled the French peninsula of Cap Ferret by boat and the smell of smoke drifted into parts of Spain’s capital Madrid on Friday as wildfires swept through multiple parts of western Europe, triggering states of emergency and calls for EU help.

Some 40,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France due to a fire that has ravaged more than 25,000 acres, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told AFP, calling the blaze “the largest fire of the season.”

“As I speak, gradually, 40,000 people have either been evacuated or are currently being evacuated,” he said, stressing that there have been no reported casualties so far. “A total of 80 homes have burnt, around 50 of which have been completely destroyed.”

In Spain, two separate blazes were raging out of control within 62 miles of Madrid, with some residents of the Spanish capital waking up to the smell of smoke, according to residents.

“The gendarmes came and knocked on every door, the fire was about 500 meters (yards) away — we grabbed some things and left,” said Patrick Martineau, a 69-year-old resident of Le Porge, near Bordeaux.

Three firefighters have been killed as southern Europe endures more severe heat, with temperatures topping the 40 degree Celsius mark (104 Fahrenheit) in some areas. 

At least 5,700 more people than usual died in France last month amid a historic heat wave, French health officials said earlier this week. That figure represented a sharp increase in the estimated death toll nationwide from June and early July’s record temperatures. 

France registered its hottest-ever days on June 24 and June 25, with a national average of 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

The total area of land burned so far this year across EU countries is the second largest on record, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

French authorities ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast out of campsites and holiday homes as firefighters backed by water-bombing planes raced to control the blazes.

France has invoked the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to ask for help, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, warning that the crisis remained “very intense.”

The EU said it would provide three water-bombing planes to France.

In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the situation “dramatic.”

“Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday,” the Madrid regional government said in a post on X.

France’s southeast was also being hard hit, with dozens of fires flaring up and being fanned by the mistral wind around the historic village of Cotignac — officials saying around 25 houses had been destroyed since Tuesday.

In Italy, thousands of emergency workers battled scores of fires in Sicily and in the Calabria region, where a local official said arsonists had started fires by tying rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread the flames.

One firefighter died after falling ill while battling the flames in Sicily, the interior minister said.