COTIGNAC, FRANCE – JULY 21: Onlookers watch smoke and flames from a wildfire on July 21, 2026 in Cotignac, France. More than 1,000 firefighters have been called in to control a wildfire that has burned more than 2,500 hectares in southern France. (Photo by FBM Media/Getty Images)
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Wildfires are ravaging southern France and have spread to Spain, forcing more than 300,000 people to flee ahead of more heatwaves expected later in the week.
French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to hold a critical cabinet meeting on Monday, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit areas affected by the fire in Valencia, eastern Spain.
The fire, which broke out in southwestern France in the Gironde region on Wednesday, has burned 42,000 hectares and forced the largest toll in French history, according to French broadcaster France 24 and local media. Wildfires also affected 77,000 hectares in the areas of Avila and Toledo West of Madrid.
“The situation is not very good,” said French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Saturday, according to Google. “At the beginning of the night, in the Gironde, the fire became extremely strong and unexpectedly again, it fanned its own wind and spread mysteriously towards the city of Bordeaux. At the end of the night, it was a little quiet.”
On Saturday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the wildfires were a “historic situation” in the country, with nearly 100,000 hectares burned since the start of the year – an “unprecedented” level.
Meanwhile, the French Minister of Finance, Roland Lescure, said that the crisis has severely hampered the local economy. “It’s like a clap of hands in a place that could have happened without this,” he told reporters.
Spain’s Military Emergency Unit (UME) and Castilla-y-Leon firefighters extinguish a fire in a forest near the settlement of La Atalaya in El Tiemblo, 80 kilometers west of Madrid, on July 25, 2026 amid wildfires that have burned 25,000 hectares. Spanish firefighters were hoping to bring the wildfires burning near Madrid under control on Saturday, but an official warned that variable winds threatened to spread the blaze. The worst wildfires in the history of the Madrid region are raging west of the Spanish capital, forcing authorities to evacuate or order around 60,000 people to stay indoors. (Photo by Cesar MANSO / AFP via Getty Images)
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Since the disaster began, 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 soldiers, and about 1,200 police have been deployed to control the fire, Nunez said.
In the latest developments, the main government agency in the Bordeaux area known as the Gironde region, said on Monday, “the situation has been stable overnight from Sunday to Monday, with no major developments to report.”
The big fire is called “pyrocumulonimbus” which is very dangerous and rare – a type of cloud of fire that generates winds and storms, making it “uncontrollable and unmanageable,” Nicolas Braz, Captain of the fire department, told AFP.
The artificial environment increases the fire
Stefan Doerr, professor of wildland fire science at Swansea University, said climate change and poor land management were contributing to the increase in fires.
“Climate change plays a big role in this, and better management means we have to better manage the situation so we don’t spread the fire,” Doerr said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
The abandonment of agricultural land in parts of southern Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean and parts of Madrid, has allowed burning grass, shrubs and dense forests to spread, making fires difficult to contain during extreme heat and drought, Doerr said.
“And that means when we have these extreme weather conditions, extreme drought, when there’s a fire, it’s a lot harder to fight,” Doerr said.
Additionally, Doerr told CNBC Europe that it has been shaped by thousands of years of agriculture and human activity, with many forests now consisting of dense conifer plantations prone to fires.
“If we had natural habitat, in fact, in some areas, we would have very little forest that could burn,” he said. “This is man-made. It’s not that the plants are not natural, but the way the landscape looks now is completely artificial.”
TOPSHOT – An Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss plane drops water on a wildfire burning near San Martin de Valdeiglesias, about 70 kilometers west of Madrid, on July 26, 2026. Spanish firefighters today battled the blaze near the coastal city of Valencia, where at least 15000 people are trapped. In the region west of Madrid, two separate wildfires coalesced on July 24 into large flames that almost joined other fires in the neighboring regions of Castile and Leon. The flames have already burned 25,000 hectares across Madrid and the neighboring state of Avila, forcing more than 60,000 people (a revised figure) to flee their homes, according to authorities, who called the fire “the worst in history” in the Madrid region. (Photo by Cesar MANSO / AFP via Getty Images)
Cesar Manso Afp | Getty Images
Doerr said that Europe is not really prepared for the wildfires that happen every year in the Mediterranean regions.
“What’s strange, really, is that we’re here now [had] “It’s the third heat wave in a row that’s really drying out the area, and that means that once we have a fire, that can progress to a more severe fire,” he said.
Doerr acknowledged that Europe has strengthened its firefighting capabilities, but said it has not made enough progress in reducing the risk of wildfires before they start.
“This is actually [about] better land management, better preparedness for fires, better communication, and better science compared to better firefighting resources, as we see now, are still a long way off,” he said.
