France orders total evacuation of Cap Ferret peninsula as wildfire spreads

‘Highly unpredictable’ blaze forces evacuation of French holiday spot Cap Ferret and Spain declares national emergency

More than 100,000 people have fled or been ordered to lock down as huge wildfires sweep Spain and France , prompting Madrid to declare a national emergency and the French authorities to order the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots.

Authorities in south-west France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village” in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 12,500 hectares (30,900 acres) of forest.

Spain’s government declared its first national emergency for a wildfire as two large blazes merged into one outside Madrid and a third was on the verge of joining them, amid searing heat and tinder-dry conditions across much of southern Europe .

Both countries sought EU help. “This is the worst wildfire in our region’s history,” said Madrid’s regional leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, describing “an unprecedented situation: a perfect storm of extremely high temperatures and relentless winds”.

More than 60,000 people had been evacuated in two days to escape the Cap Ferret fire, the Gironde prefecture said, including thousands of holidaymakers in campsites and rental homes. Boats ferried hundreds off piers on the peninsula on Friday as the blaze threatened to cut off the only access road.

Scientists say climate breakdown is triggering more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths . Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.

About 800 firefighters and four water-bombing planes were battling the Gironde blaze north of Arcachon Bay, but the fire, which began on Wednesday near the village of Saumos 25 miles (40km) west of Bordeaux, was not yet stabilised.

Numerous roads in the area, including those leading to Cap Ferret, which is also home to the villas of celebrities and millionaires – were closed to all but essential traffic. Eighty houses had burned.

“I’ve seen plenty of fires before, but never one of this intensity,” Jean Mazodier, 86, who owns 150 hectares of forest and was evacuated from his home at 6am, told Le Monde. “Everything’s burned. It’s like losing a child.”

A second fire raging in the region, farther south near the popular holiday resort of Biscarrosse, had also burned through more than 2,500 hectares, the Landes prefect, Gilles Clavreul, said on Friday, and led to the evacuation of about 31,000 people.

More than 600 firefighters were struggling to contain that blaze, Clavreul said.“There are a great many new fire starts ahead of the main blaze. The situation is highly dynamic and unfavourable,” he added.

In 2022, a wildfire burned more than 30,000 hectares in France’s south-west, forcing 50,000 evacuations. In parched conditions and fanned by strong winds, the two latest blazes have torn through coastal pine forests with flames up to 10 metres (33ft) high.

France’s president, ​Emmanuel Macron, said he had activated the EU’s civil protection mechanism as the country, which has endured three almost back-to-back heatwaves since May, battled numerous wildfires mainly in the south-west and south-east.

“We will soon be able to count ‌on reinforcements from two Croatian aircraft, two Portuguese planes, as well as two heavy helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” Macron said.

France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on Friday that 32 wildfires were burning across France, with 50,000 hectares scorched already so far this year – nearly four times the total by the same date last year.

About 800 firefighters were battling a blaze in the south-eastern Var area, where weather conditions were improving, Nuñez said, allowing some firefighting resources, including water-bombing planes, to be redeployed to the south-west.

The severity of fires in the EU has broken records for the time of year, data from the European Forest Fire Information System shows, with about twice as much land burned by 22 July than the average for that date over the past two decades.

Spain’s government declared a national emergency on Thursday evening after wildfires ⁠threatened communities near the capital and in the neighbouring province of Ávila, leading to the evacuation or confinement of around 40,000 people.

The ​interior ministry said the decision was taken because of the simultaneous outbreak of several fires, adverse weather conditions and ⁠the need to mobilise extensive resources from several public administrations.

A national emergency, which allows central government to assume overall control of powers and responsibilities that are usually the domain of Spain’s self-governing regions, has only been declared once before, during the countrywide blackout of April 2025.

The regional government of Madrid requested assistance, describing the situation as one of “extreme gravity”. It said at least four active fires could advance “beyond current extinguishing capacity”. The fires remained uncontained on Friday.

Spanish authorities said on Friday afternoon there was “very little time left” before the blaze in Madrid, already made up of two merged fires, combined with the Ávila fire.

On Friday night, Madrid’s regional environment minister, Carlos Novillo, said the fire had reached “a critical moment” and was “beyond our extinguishing capability”. He added: “The priority at the moment is protecting people, helping those who have been evacuated, and making the most of windows of opportunity. ”

José Cobos, who fled his home about 30 miles south-west of Madrid on Friday morning with his wife and three dogs, told Antena 3 television: “The smoke was incredibly thick. You couldn’t breathe.”

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, chaired an emergency response meeting at the Moncloa palace on Friday morning as the state meteorological office warned that the danger of more fires remained very high or extreme across much of the country.

He said the government had deployed “all available resources. It will be by your side during the emergency and the recovery.” The prime minister also thanked “all the emergency services that are fighting day and night”. Sánchez is due to visit the affected area on Saturday morning.

In an update on Friday morning, Spain’s environment ministry said 29 big forest fires had been recorded so far in 2026, compared with an annual average of nine between January and the end of July per year over the past decade. Forest fires had burned about 114,796 hectares, compared with 25,133 by the same time last year.

Spain’s interior ministry has also requested fire-fighting aircraft through the EU’s civil protection mechanism, which aims to strengthen civil protection cooperation between EU countries and 10 additional participating states.

Spain’s Guardia Civil force, which polices rural areas, said late on Friday that one man had been arrested and another was under investigation in connection with the forest fire in the Burgohondo municipality of Ávila. It added that the two suspects had apparently ignored a ban on the use of heavy machinery, thereby creating “sparks … that may have caused the fire”.