France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

A wildfire burns near Cestas in Gironde province in south-west France. Photograph: Julien Soulard/EPA View image in fullscreen A wildfire burns near Cestas in Gironde province in south-west France. Photograph: Julien Soulard/EPA France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins Officials talk of ‘absolutely critical’ days for firefighters before rise again from middle of the week Europe wildfires live – latest updates Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before another heatwave later this week that will complicate efforts to tame the flames. Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said Monday and Tuesday were “absolutely crucial days” before temperatures rise again from Wednesday onwards. EU officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land burned. A fire in the hilly terrain of Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, burning 50,000 hectares (123,000 acres). Authorities are battling two separate fires north-west of Madrid, taking the total area of scorched land near the capital to 70,000 hectares. View image in fullscreen Charred cars in the village of Chapineria. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters France was also in “a race against time” to control wildfires before another heatwave this week, said Eric Brocardi, a fire service spokesperson. Weather forecasters have said temperatures could reach 40C (104F) is some parts of the country from Tuesday. This would complicate efforts to control the wildfire in Gironde in south-west 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, making it one of the biggest devastations of land in France since the second world war. map In the Cestas commune, about 10 miles (17km) from the city of Bordeaux, firefighters used mechanical diggers to uproot trees in a attempt to create a firewall. The vast fire, which has triggered the evacuation of 220,000 people, had not progressed during the early hours of Monday but was “not contained” and remained “very complicated to control”, Nuñez said. Speaking after an emergency meeting of the French government on Monday, he described this year’s wildfires as “completely exceptional”. More than 116,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have been burned since January, far exceeding the 70,000 hectares reported for the whole of 2025. chart Spain’s government said the 172,000 hectares of forested land burned this yearwas six times greater than the equivalent figure for 2025. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told a climate conference the wildfires were not isolated incidents. “It is the most painful manifestation of a climate emergency that is making … wildfires more voracious and heat