![\"burned-residential-properties-are-seen-after-the-passage-of-the-wildfire-smoke-continues-to-rise-from-the-affected-areas-as-firefighters-monitor-remaining-hotspots-in-lege-france-on-july-27-2026\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785231970_270_.jpeg\")
\n Burned residential properties are seen after the passage of the wildfire, smoke continues to rise from the affected areas as firefighters monitor remaining hotspots in L\u00e8ge, France. Abaca Press \/ Alamy Live News<\/p>\n
FIREFIGHTERS IN FRANCE and Spain rushed to contain the worst wildfires in living memory on Tuesday, seizing crucial hours before the arrival of another wave of searing temperatures.<\/p>\n
New heatwaves are expected to hit western Europe this week, with searing temperatures returning to France from Tuesday, and in Spain from Wednesday, meteorologists said.<\/p>\n
Blazes have ripped through vast swathes of woodland in both countries, incinerating properties and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people \u2013 residents and tourists alike.<\/p>\n
A large wildfire raging near the French winemaking capital of Bordeaux created a rare pyrocumulonimbus cloud \u2013 a phenomenon that can create wind and lightning.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s weather agency AEMET announced a new heatwave starting Wednesday until the end of the week, with temperatures forecast to hit 42 degrees in the northeast and 39 degrees in the centre.<\/p>\n
MeteoFrance also forecast more hot weather of up to 40 degrees from Tuesday with dry wind.<\/p>\n
Temperatures in Ireland are forecast not to pass 25 degrees this week.<\/p>\n
In the southwestern city\u2019s surrounding Gironde region, tractors fitted with blades to clear land, pickups towing water tanks and logging trucks sped to join a convoy of fire engines on Monday.<\/p>\n
Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the coming hours would be \u201cabsolutely decisive\u201d to tame fires burning west of the capital, Madrid.<\/p>\n
In France, the focus was on the blaze near Bordeaux.<\/p>\n
Firefighters said today the fire had not expanded overnight as they managed to tackle several flare-ups.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron warned of hard times ahead as he visited a crisis centre in the city on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coming weeks will be tough and we have to hold out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Macron pledged the government\u2019s support in the national response to one of the largest fires in France since World War II.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be there, and together we are going to win this battle, and we will also be there over the long term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Over the past six days, the wildfire near Bordeaux has ravaged 42,000 hectares, forced 220,000 people to flee and destroyed 240 houses.<\/p>\n
\u201cMobilisation is still full and complete, particularly on the eve of a day that is expected to be marked by a significant rise in temperatures and a drop in humidity,\u201d the prefect of Gironde said late on Monday, describing the situation as \u201chighly unpredictable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Macron said a smaller fire in the adjoining Landes \u2013 which had nonetheless forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people \u2013 was now \u201ccontained\u201d.<\/p>\n
But he warned it \u201cremains virulent and we must be extremely cautious over the next few hours and the coming days\u201d.<\/p>\n
This was due to the \u201cconditions of climate change in which we will live,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Evacuations<\/p>\n
\n Burned residential properties are seen after the passage of the wildfire, smoke continues to rise from the affected areas as firefighters monitor remaining hotspots in L\u00e8ge, France. Abaca Press \/ Alamy Live News<\/p>\n
Abaca Press \/ Alamy Live News \/ Alamy Live News\n<\/p>\n
The Landes fire affected 500 hectares in 24 hours, the fire department told news agency AFP.<\/p>\n
Some 15,000 people in the region were able to return home as of Monday evening, according to the prefect of Landes.<\/p>\n
In Spain, where blazes were burning west of Madrid, some 60,000 people have also been evacuated.<\/p>\n
At a sports hall just outside Madrid, displaced people sprawled on camp beds, held their heads in their hands and comforted pets.<\/p>\n
Maria Angeles Canete fought back tears as she looked around the desolation that used to be her campsite near Navaluenga, west of the capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost everything,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had this campsite, we had another one, and we\u2019ve lost it all. We have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The European Union on Monday announced more water-bombing planes were being sent to France, in addition to those already deployed to Spain.<\/p>\n
![\"firefighters-use-controlled-burning-to-halt-a-wildfire-that-continues-to-spread-near-cebreros-avila-province-spain-tuesday-july-28-2026-ap-photomanu-fernandez\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785231970_716_.jpeg\")
\n Firefighters use controlled burning to halt a wildfire that continues to spread near Cebreros, \u00c1vila province, Spain on Tuesday. AP Photo \/ Manu Fernandez<\/p>\n
AP Photo \/ Manu Fernandez \/ Manu Fernandez\n<\/p>\n
But EU commissioner Hadja Lahbib told AFP that its fleet was increasingly stretched due to fears they may soon be needed elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtreme conditions are looming for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, in addition to France, the Iberian Peninsula\u2026 where the situation is expected to worsen, including in Portugal starting today,\u201d Lahbib said.<\/p>\n
The scale of the devastation from the Spanish fires is vast in the worst-affected areas.<\/p>\n
Pine trees smouldered with blackened trunks and smoke rose from charred forests, with the burnt-out husks of cars and houses reduced to shells, AFP reporters said.<\/p>\n
That country has seen 77,000 hectares \u2013 nearly the size of New York City \u2013 destroyed.<\/p>\n
David Sanchez, a 48-year-old, had just returned home to Cebreros after evacuating at the weekend to find that his small olive and pistachio grove had been consumed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s time to clean up and plant again and that\u2019s it\u2026 and the fire has flared up again down there,\u201d he said, surrounded by choking air that stung the eyes and throat.<\/p>\n
Some 150,000 hectares of land have burned in Spain and 115,000 hectares in France since the start of this year.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called the fires \u201cthe most painful expression of a climate emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIREFIGHTERS IN FRANCE and Spain rushed to contain the worst wildfires in living memory on Tuesday, seizing crucial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,442,1015,13,14,2220,6,226374,11,12,15,16,5,383,7,8,4239,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-607978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-climate-change","tag-europe","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-france","tag-headlines","tag-heatwaves","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-spain","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wildfires","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116996971209218487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}