{"id":248344,"date":"2025-07-08T15:43:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248344\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:43:15","slug":"wildfires-rage-across-europe-as-18k-in-spain-lockdown-and-marseille-airport-shut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248344\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires rage across Europe as 18k in Spain lockdown and Marseille airport shut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tStrong winds, temperatures exceeding 30\u00b0C and rugged terrain have hampered firefighting efforts\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

Wildfires<\/a> in Spain and France have forced thousands into lockdown, with hundreds more evacuated, as a heatwave <\/a>drove temperatures to record levels across Europe.<\/p>\n

Spanish authorities have ordered more than 18,000 people to remain indoors and dozens more were evacuated as wildfires raged across Catalonia.<\/p>\n

The blaze, which broke out on Monday in the remote Pauls village in the Tarragona province, has burned nearly 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of vegetation.<\/p>\n

Strong winds, temperatures exceeding 30\u00b0C and rugged terrain have hampered firefighting efforts, local officials said.<\/p>\n

An emergency military unit was deployed early on Tuesday to assist more than 300 firefighters battling the flames.<\/p>\n

\"AFirefighting efforts in Xerta, one of the affected villages in Tarragona province (Photo: Nacho Doce\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

David Borrell, the regional fire inspector, said in a statement<\/a> that gusts of wind reached up to 90kph (56mph) overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working all night in a very precarious, very hard way, and we have been protecting the population,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The strong Mistral wind was set to ease on Tuesday afternoon, local authorities said.<\/p>\n

Residents from the village of Xerta told The i Paper<\/a> they watched in terror as flames encircled their homes overnight, saying \u201cthe flames were very loud \u2013 you can\u2019t see how far away they are in the dark\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA fire-fighting aircraft Air Tractor AT-802 drops fire retardant over a wildfire near Aussieres neighbourhood, close to the city of Narbonne, southwestern France (Photo: Matthieu Rondel\/AFP via Getty) <\/p>\n

The inferno comes after Spain<\/a> experienced its warmest June on record, with large parts of the country placed under high alert for wildfires.<\/p>\n

Two people died on 1 July in a separate fire in Spain, which broke out in a rural area of Torrefeta in Catalonia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at least five people and five firefighters were injured in southern France<\/a>, where a forest fire raged for a second day, burning 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of vegetation.<\/p>\n

More than 1,000 firefighters battled the blaze overnight after it broke out on the property of a winery south of the city of Narbonne on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"PeopleA view of the blaze from Plage des Corbieres, on the outskirts of Marseille, southern France (Photo: Clement Mahoudeau\/AFP)<\/p>\n

A separate fire broke out on Tuesday near the town of Les Pennes-Mirabeau, north of Marseille, France\u2019s second-largest city. <\/p>\n

The blaze, which is estimated to be around 74 acres, has forced the closure of Marseille Provence airport.<\/p>\n

A local fire service earlier said 168 firefighters had been deployed to battle flames near Les Pennes-Mirabeau.<\/p>\n

Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan warned people in the 16th arrondissement of the city to \u201cremain confined\u201d as the blaze approaches.<\/p>\n

He wrote on X: \u201cThe violent fire declared in Pennes-Mirabeau is now at the gates of Marseille.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ask all Marseillais to be extremely vigilant and to limit their movements as much as possible to make way for emergency services, particularly in the north of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payan added that the French Navy would form part of the response to the blaze.<\/p>\n

There have been no reports of casualties.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson for Marseille airport said planes had not been taking off or landing since around midday.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that some flights heading to the airport had been diverted to Nice, Nimes and other regional airports.<\/p>\n

It was unclear when the airport would reopen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strong winds, temperatures exceeding 30\u00b0C and rugged terrain have hampered firefighting efforts Wildfires in Spain and France have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,91835,59190,36,104,732],"class_list":{"0":"post-248344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-europe-heatwave","11":"tag-extreme-weather","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-spain","14":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114818384651134836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248344","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=248344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}