{"id":1118345,"date":"2026-07-29T15:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1118345\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T15:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:53:17","slug":"europe-wildfires-2-firefighters-die-in-greece-as-france-battles-blaze-4-times-the-size-of-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1118345\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe wildfires: 2 firefighters die in Greece as France battles blaze 4 times the size of Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) \u2014 An uncontained wildfire<\/a> four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again in southwest France<\/a> on Wednesday \u2014 as two firefighters died in Greece and crews across southern Europe confronted a punishing mix of heat, drought and strong winds.<\/p>\n

The deaths on Crete brought a fatal new dimension to a wildfire emergency stretching from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.<\/p>\n

In France\u2019s Gironde region, authorities said the blaze<\/a> had not spread during a calm night. But temperatures forecast to reach 40 C (104 F) and strengthening afternoon winds threatened to turn that respite into only a brief reprieve.<\/p>\n

The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations.<\/p>\n

At the command center in L\u00e8ge, firefighters bent over maps spread across a car hood, tracking three danger zones: northern Cap-Ferret; the wooded corridor around Marcheprime, Cestas and Saint-Jean-d\u2019Illac; and a military site near Martignas, where a major outbreak forced a large deployment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More than 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft remained mobilized, backed by crews from across France and European partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strike quickly and strike hard at any new smoke emissions,\u201d Gironde fire commander Matthieu Jomain said.<\/p>\n

Beyond the command center, civilians were trying to hold the line themselves. At Souge, volunteers flooded the edges of dirt tracks while a local digger driver plowed through still-burning soil, trying to keep flames from crossing back when the expected west wind arrived. In Lacanau, residents pumped water from a lake into tanks headed for hot spots and firefighters\u2019 cisterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf one day the fire starts in our neck of the woods, I know very well that all the people here would do the same for us,\u201d said Flavien Dubuch, 33, who drove from Saint-\u00c9milion with his father to help.<\/p>\n

Hottest day this week<\/p>\n

The advance of major fires in the Landes and Var regions has been halted. That left Gironde<\/a> as France\u2019s biggest remaining wildfire battle, Interior Minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez said.<\/p>\n

The Gironde fire forced 220,000 people<\/a> to flee at the peak of the crisis. Tens of thousands have since been allowed home, but authorities warned that the danger had not passed.<\/p>\n

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Extreme heat<\/a> strips moisture from vegetation and drives down humidity, turning grasses, brush and forest litter into faster-burning fuel.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe contractors working near a high-voltage line for power-grid operator Enedis ignited the blaze while using a brush-cutting machine, Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said.<\/p>\n

M\u00e9t\u00e9o-France said Wednesday would be the hottest and driest day of the week, with elevated wildfire danger across every region of France. Drought now covers mainland France and Corsica, with soils nearing the record dryness reached in August 2022.<\/p>\n

Smoke from the Gironde and Landes fires also pushed particulate pollution higher across both departments, regional air-quality monitors said.<\/p>\n

Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people out of tourist sites along the Atlantic coast<\/a> on Tuesday, widening what may be France\u2019s largest peacetime evacuation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation remains complicated. That\u2019s clear. We\u2019re not out of the woods,\u201d said Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who also authorized 60,000 evacuees to return to three Bordeaux suburbs untouched by fire.<\/p>\n

The opposing movements \u2014 thousands ordered out of coastal resorts as others returned with mobile phones on and emergency bags packed \u2014 captured how precarious the situation remains.<\/p>\n

The disruption was spreading beyond the burn zone into Bordeaux\u2019s peak tourism season.<\/p>\n

Edouard le Grix de la Salle, who runs Ch\u00e2teau du Grand Verdus with his brother, said official appeals to avoid the region threatened its wine-tourism trade. \u201cHow did they not think about protecting that sector?\u201d he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

At one point the Gironde blaze created a black thundercloud<\/a>, electrified and lit from within, that generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front. The pyrocumulonimbus was the first recorded in France.<\/p>\n

Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a wildfire in the Rethymno region of Crete, Greece\u2019s fire department said. They were among about 125 firefighters confronting flames fanned by strong winds, with four helicopters and four water-dropping planes deployed.<\/p>\n

The circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear. The department said they died \u201cin the line of duty to protect the lives and property of citizens and the natural environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands begin returning home in Spain<\/p>\n

At the height of the crisis, roughly 330,000 people were driven from homes and vacation sites across France and Spain.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people began returning home in central Spain after firefighters made progress around Madrid and \u00c1vila. Evacuation orders were lifted for about 20,000 people in the Madrid region<\/a>, while stay-at-home restrictions ended for another 14,000.<\/p>\n

But 10,000 people remain under evacuation orders in Castell\u00f3n, where a fire was still out of control as Spain braced for its fourth heat wave<\/a> of the summer.<\/p>\n

More than 1,160 square kilometers (448 square miles) have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n

Europe is the world\u2019s fastest-warming continent, warming at more than twice the global average, according to the European Union\u2019s Copernicus climate service. Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness contributing to the spread and intensification of fires in France and Spain, Copernicus said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Adamson reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Alex Turnbull in Souge, France, and John Leicester and Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) \u2014 An uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1118346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3843],"tags":[304765,7029,8616,304763,728,5215,12264,36,4179,33150,304766,304358,304764,304762,1411,70,302624,104,304761,16,15,741,732,263],"class_list":["post-1118345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alex-turnbull","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-elena-becatoros","tag-environment","tag-eurocopa-2024","tag-fires","tag-france","tag-general-news","tag-heat-waves","tag-john-leicester","tag-laurent-nuez","tag-masha-macpherson","tag-matthieu-jomain","tag-paris","tag-science","tag-sophie-brocas","tag-spain","tag-suman-naishadham","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-weather","tag-wildfires","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117004075155111258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}