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170,000 hectares of forest land affected by wildfires in Spain since start of 2026
Provisional data on wildfires in Spain shows that more than 170,000 hectares of forest land have been affected since the beginning of the year – a nearly sixfold increase on the almost 29,000 recorded in the same period in 2025.
35 major fires have been recorded so far, up from just 11 last year.
Why Europe’s wildfires are proving so fierce and difficult to stop
Brendan Wood
for MetDesk
A combination of an unusually wet winter, very low rainfall since spring and repeated record-breaking summer heatwaves is likely to explain why wildfires have ignited, spread and resisted control so readily across France and Spain in recent days.
About 90% of wildfires are started by human activity, typically igniting “fine fuels” such as vegetation grass, pine needles, litter and twigs. And recent weather has almost certainly made ignition far easier. Drought in western Europe has turned this vegetation – which normally dries after only a few hours of heat and low rainfall – into tinder.
Fine fuel moisture code values climbed above the 96th percentile this month, while France and Spain’s eighth-wettest winters on record left an abundance of fine fuel ready to burn.
Once established, fires can spread into heavier fuels including shrubs, roots and deeper litter if conditions are dry enough. These materials burn hotter and for longer, can smoulder long after flames appear to have extinguished and generate towering columns of superheated air capable of carrying embers far beyond the blaze.
Heavier fuels also take much longer to dry than fine fuel, but this year’s prolonged dry spell and three record-breaking heatwaves have allowed them to dry substantially.
Winds may have also made the fires harder to predict. France’s largest blaze, in Gironde, initially spread westwards towards the coast on an easterly breeze before winds abruptly turned westerly on Friday, driving the fire back towards Bordeaux. Fires of this scale can also generate their own strong, gusty winds, creating unpredictable behaviour that complicates firefighting efforts.
Showers and thunderstorms near the largest fires in France and Spain brought little rainfall on Saturday and may instead have made conditions worse. Rain evaporating beneath a storm cloud cools the air, making it denser, so that it rapidly sinks to the ground before spreading in all directions. These downdrafts can fuel sudden, erratic fire behaviour. Cloud-to-ground lightning without accompanying rainfall can also ignite new fires.
With increasingly high pressure expected to delay any meaningful – albeit unevenly distributed – rain until the end of the week, while increasing the likelihood of a fourth summer heatwave across much of Europe, the threat of further large wildfires is likely to persist into August.
Macron chairs emergency meeting on French wildfires
Over in Paris, French president Emmanuel Macron is now chairing an emergency meeting on wildfires in the country, flanked by prime minister Sébastien Lecornu and interior minister Laurent Nuñez, who has been at the frontline of the state response over the weekend.
We are expecting hear from Nuñez later this morning – I will bring you the lines here.
Europe is not prepared for consequences of climate change, senior EU commissioner warns
European Commission vice-president Teresa Ribera warned that Europe is not prepared for the consequences of climate change and said it would need to move faster to adapt to the climate emergency.
Ribera, a former minister in Sanchez’s government in Spain, told El País that recent rail and electricity disruptions and pressures on health systems across the continent showed that Europe still needs to do more to prepare for what’s coming in the future.
She said the European Commission was working towards a plan on climate change adaptation, to be approved in October, with a “more comprehensive and far-reaching update” of measures taken so far.
Ribera said that “given Europe is warming faster than the average for all continents,” it needs to do more – and faster – to prepare for extreme weather events, like wildfires or floods, like in Valencia in October 2024.
Madrid fire ‘slowed down’ but remains ‘active and uncontrolled,’ authorities say
Authorities in Madrid said the spread of the fire overnight “slowed down” and “allowed firefighters to act on them,” but it remains “active and uncontrolled.”
“Three fronts have been identified, with the most active one located north of the San Juan Reservoir.
Citizens are urged to continue exercising extreme caution and to stay informed about the situation’s evolution through official sources.”
France facing ‘a race against time’ as temperatures set to soar again
Angelique Chrisafis
in Bordeaux
France is facing “a race against time” to control wildfires before heatwave temperatures soar again this week, said Eric Brocardi, a fire service spokesperson.
Weather forecasters have warned that another heatwave could hit France from Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 40C in some areas.
This would complicate efforts to control the wildfire in Gironde, south-western France, which the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez described as “extremely intense and unpredictable… generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area.”
The Gironde fire has so far burned 42,000 hectares, an area four times the size of Paris and one of the biggest devastations of land since the second world war.
Smoke from the fires is continuing to cause a “marked deterioration” in air quality across a swathe of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and beyond, with health authorities issuing warnings about the danger.
Elderly people, pregnant women and those with respiratory issues and chronic conditions were advised to take precautions. Local health authorities said people should close windows, wear an FFP2 mask outside and avoid strenuous activity. The prime minister’s office said more than 1.5 million FFP2 masks had been sent to the region.
A total of 220,000 people and 13,000 businesses have been evacuated in Gironde.
‘Climate emergency kills,’ Spain’s Sánchez warns, as he says ‘full power of state’ will help affected by wildfires
In the last few minutes, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said that “the full power of the state” will support all people affected by the wildfires near Madrid.
Speaking at a climate conference in Madrid, Sánchez said:
“What we are living through is not a series of isolated incidents. It is … the most painful manifestation of a climate emergency that is making … wildfires more voracious and heatwaves more frequent, and, as a result, our land more vulnerable. It is no longer an exception. It is the rule.”
He warned that “climate emergency kills,” and said the government needed to “tackle the root causes” and “anticipate the impacts” better, accelerating its work on energy transition.
“We have made progress, unquestionably, but it is obvious that we must redouble our efforts, because scientific forecasts are being surpassed year after year,” he warned.
Firefighters battle to keep fire away from Bordeaux
Firefighters battled throughout the night and into Monday morning to tackle huge wildfires threatening the French city of Bordeaux, Reuters reported.
“This is a fire of a size never seen before,” said Jérôme Steffe, mayor of Cestas, on Monday. Cestas is one of the suburbs that lies just outside the main Bordeaux city area and from where thousands have had to be evacuated from homes and holiday residences.
The blazes, which broke out last week near the Atlantic coast, are now 15 km (10 miles) away from entry points to the main metropolitan area of Bordeaux.
So far in July, high temperatures have averaged 32.2 degrees Celsius in the Aquitaine region, which is 7.3C above the month’s normal high between 1961 and 1990, according to Reuters Climate Monitor.
Wildfires in France and Spain – the latest
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris, Sam Jones in Madrid and Jennifer Rankin
Wildfires have forced about 375,000 people to flee their homes in France and Spain. In France nearly 260,000 have been forced to flee, while in neighbouring Spain 116,000 have been evacuated this week.
Bordeaux’s mayor, Thomas Cazenave, described the Gironde blaze in France as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area”, between 15 and 20 miles (25-30km) from the city itself, which has a population of 268,000. An evacuation of the city was not on the cards, he said.
The fire situation in Gironde remained “broadly stable overnight” with no major developments, the local authority said on Monday. “Security and emergency services remain fully mobilised and are continuing their operations on the ground,” the statement said.
Authorities in Spain said major areas of fire near Madrid had been contained and cooled down, according to a senior officer with Spain’s military emergencies unit.
“We’re facing some difficult hours, although it’s true that the latest update has shown that last night was very positive in terms of the fire’s evolution and efforts to control it,” prime minister Pedro Sánchez said.
The EU commissioner for crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, told the BBC it was likely that damage from wildfires would exceed previous records. “Last year, one million hectares burned during the summer and so we are expecting to face another historic, sad record because the season has started earlier in the year,” she said.
Morning opening: France, Spain continue to battle dramatic fires
Jakub Krupa
French president Emmanuel Macron is about to chair a crisis meeting on major wildfires that have seen over 250,000 flee their homes after another challenging night in the Gironde region.
Local authorities said the situation was “globally stable” overnight in a marked improvement on previous nights, but the situation on the ground remained difficult.
We are expecting to hear from France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, after this morning’s meetings and I will bring you his comments here.
Over in Spain, some progress was reported with plans to allow some of the 116,0000 people evacuated to gradually return home near Madrid.
But the country’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez spoke on Sunday night of “difficult hours” still ahead, with some concern that strong winds could complicate the response on Monday.
I will bring you all the latest throughout the day as we will track the situation in both countries.
Separately, I will also keep an eye on Germany and the aftermath of the Islamist terrorist attack on a pride event on Saturday, with chancellor Friedrich Merz facing tricky questions on reports that the suspect had been convicted in Germany of “preparing a serious act of subversive violence,” but his sentence was suspended.
I will also keep an eye on Iceland, as PM Kristrún Frostadóttir is in Berlin today, just over a month before her high-stakes referendum on reopening EU accession talks.
Finally, there will also be updates from Romania, which saw three drone incursions over the weekend and its air forces shot down all three.
Lots of ground for us to cover.
I will bring you all the updates here.
It’s Monday, 27 July 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
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