France braces for fourth major heatwave as crews tackle Bordeaux blaze
Firefighters held the blaze in check overnight as 2,200 crews and aircraft remained mobilized and officials warned rising heat could revive hot spots.
- On Tuesday, France and Spain battled unprecedented wildfires that forced over 300,000 people to evacuate their homes, with military units and water-bomber aircraft mobilized to protect the Gironde region and areas near Madrid.
- Extreme drought and successive heatwaves left vegetation critically dry, enabling rare pyrocumulonimbus firestorms that generate their own winds and overwhelmed local services, prompting the European Union to surge resources to both nations.
- France deployed 1,500 soldiers to create 103 kilometers of firebreaks, while 93 firefighters were injured battling blazes that destroyed 240 houses in Gironde alone during the crisis.
- President Emmanuel Macron visited the Gironde crisis center on Monday, declaring some blazes "contained" while warning others remain "virulent" and that smouldering hotspots could reignite as temperatures rise.
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the crisis "the most painful expression of a climate emergency," while officials warned fires may burn for months, forcing communities to prepare for intensifying heatwaves linked to human-caused climate change.
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The French hope for a more mild weather in Gironde, where the fire, heated by heat and winds, has already consumed 42,000 hectares.
The Local - Fr
The LocalPODCAST 🎧: France ravaged by climate crisis as wildfires and drought blight summer
The Talking France podcast interrupts its summer break with a special episode on the wildfires raging across the country - why is this fire season so severe, how is it affecting daily life and travel, and are France's political leaders finally waking up to the worsening climate crisis?
Fortunately, there have been no fatalities in the wildfires around Bordeaux so far. However, the economic damage is mounting rapidly. Businesses are forced to close, campsites are seeing cancellations pour in, and the costs of planting new forests could rise to a billion euros.
France is fighting against devastating forest fires. For politics and the media, the alleged culprit has long been determined: climate change. Over neglected forests, growing fuel masses and Brussels in the truest sense of the word fire-dangerous deadwood policy, however, is rather silent. In France it burns once again. Around 42,000 hectares were devastated by the big fire in the Gironde alone, about 220,000 people had to leave their homes, cam…
If the situation is not comparable to that of the Gironde, several departments of the former Midi-Pyrénées are in the midst of numerous fires. Since 1 June 2026, 2,014 hectares have burned, equivalent to 2,878 football fields. Here is a point about the situation.
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