While the main fires in the southwest Gironde region, near Bordeaux, and west of Madrid, did not worsen overnight, according to local authorities, temperatures forecast to reach as high as 40 degrees Celsius prompted the European Forest Fires Information System to issue a “very extreme conditions” for fire alert covering France and Spain through Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Firefighters in Gironde were working with military engineers to try to contain the flames with fire breaks as evacuations continued, with another 4,000 people ordered to leave Lacanau — a popular coastal holiday spot — bringing to 224,000 the number of people forced to flee the region.<\/p>\n
France’s Regional Health Agency said it had dispatched millions of face masks to affected regions of France to protect people from air pollution from wildfires, with residents urged to remain indoors as much as possible.\n<\/p>\n
French Health Minister Stephanie Rist advised people with underlying health conditions to wear them or any FFP2 mask if they needed to go outside. An FFP2 mask is a snug-fitting face covering that meets European Union standards requiring it to block a minimum of 94% of airborne particles.<\/p>\n
In an update Monday, Spain’s Interior Ministry confirmed 63,152 people had been evacuated from three regions in the center of the country around Madrid.<\/p>\n
More than 190 square miles have been burnt in Avila province alone, with Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen saying it was Spain’s largest ever wildfire.<\/p>\n
However, Sanchez said there was “light at the end<\/a> of the tunnel” even as firefighters and troops continued to battle eight major wildfires around Madrid and in the northeastern province of Valencia.<\/p>\n Isabel D\u00edaz Ayuso, president of the Madrid region, said that with the situation improving “little by little,” officials were looking at allowing evacuated residents of several municipalities to go back to their homes.<\/p>\n The wildfires in Europe claimed a fifth life after a volunteer firefighter in a separate fire prevention operation in the Bouches-du-Rhone region in the south of France on Monday was killed when the fire truck he was driving left the road.\n<\/p>\n A man was killed in a suburb of Valencia after fire swept through a ravine at the weekend and three firefighters<\/a>, two in France and one in Italy, were killed last week.<\/p>\n \t\t\t![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Historic-July-moments-through-the-years_1_1.jpg\")
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