Wildfires in France and Spain have forced more than 300,000 people from their homes as of Sunday, authorities in both countries said, with a 78-year-old man’s death in the Spanish town of Manises marking the first confirmed fatality directly tied to the blazes even as firefighters reported some progress against the flames threatening Bordeaux and Madrid.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Manises City Council, in a post on social media, confirmed the death of an elderly man with reduced mobility who was caught in a fast-moving blaze near his orchard outside Valencia on Saturday. Local officials said the fire, fueled by winds between 20 and 35 kilometers per hour, spread rapidly around midday but was brought under control within about four hours. The council declared two days of official mourning and thanked emergency responders for their work. Several other people were treated for smoke inhalation and burns, according to authorities.
In southwestern France, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday that 198,000 people have now been evacuated across the Gironde, Landes, Var and Tarn regions, with the large majority from Gironde. The main fire near Bordeaux remained about 30 kilometers from the city, and Gironde Prefect Sophie Brocas said the blaze had lost some intensity amid cooler temperatures and higher humidity, though she cautioned the situation “is still serious and dangerous” after winds shifted direction at midday Saturday. Overnight, additional towns near Bordeaux were told to evacuate as a precaution. France deployed 1,500 soldiers and 1,700 security personnel to the region, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,400 firefighters were battling the blazes, backed by an A400M military transport aircraft dropping flame retardant alongside a fleet of smaller water-bombing planes. Organizers shortened the final stage of the Tour de France so additional security personnel could be redirected to firefighting efforts.
Smoke from a wildfire darkens the sky over a beach in Andernos-les-Bains, southwestern France, on July 23, 2026, as the blaze near the Arcachon Basin forced evacuations from the surrounding Landes de Gascogne forest, an area already devastated by fires in 2022.
In Spain, two wildfires burning west of Madrid in the Ávila region have scorched nearly 45,000 hectares and forced roughly 90,000 people to evacuate or shelter in place, Spain’s state broadcaster RTVE reported. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska warned Saturday night that “the night is not going to be easy” as weather conditions failed to improve. Spain’s Military Emergency Unit took command of the joint firefighting operation, with unit commander Lt. Gen. Francisco Javier Marcos Izquierdo saying crews were working to keep the two fires from fully merging, though he acknowledged they were touching at some points along their perimeter. Combined, the wildfires in France and Spain have now displaced more than 300,000 people, according to figures cited by CNN and France 24, up from roughly 267,000 reported Saturday.
WHY IT MATTERS
The rapid escalation from roughly 200,000 evacuees Friday to more than 300,000 by Sunday illustrates how quickly the crisis has outpaced initial government responses, even after Spain’s first-ever national wildfire emergency declaration and France’s mobilization of military reinforcements. The Manises death — following the earlier deaths of two French firefighters near Bordeaux — underscores that the human toll of the fires is continuing to grow even as some individual blazes, like the one in Valencia, are brought under control. The Spanish Military Emergency Unit’s effort to prevent the two Ávila-area fires from merging is a critical test, since a combined blaze would likely be significantly harder to contain and could force further evacuations across a wider area west of the capital. The European Union has continued supplying reserve firefighting aircraft to both countries, reflecting the cross-border scale of what officials in both nations have called a record or near-record wildfire season.
WHAT’S NEXT
Firefighters in France will continue working through shifting wind conditions to establish stronger containment lines around Bordeaux, with authorities watching closely whether the fire’s loss of intensity holds. In Spain, the outcome of efforts to keep the two Ávila-region fires separate will shape whether evacuation orders expand further in the coming days. Authorities in both countries are expected to provide updated casualty, containment and displacement figures as conditions develop, and questions about long-term recovery — including for the thousands of evacuees still in shelters — are likely to grow as the fires continue burning into the week.
Originally published on HNGN