Algerian Radio
Fire refugees flooded into reception centers in France and Spain on Sunday, where more than 300,000 people have been evacuated near Bordeaux and Madrid due to out-of-control wildfires of historic proportions.
One person has also died in a fire near Valencia in eastern Spain.
In Gironde (southwestern France), it is "highly likely" that this is the largest civilian evacuation operation ever carried out in France outside of a conflict, according to the government. The fire is already among the largest recorded in France since World War II.
On Saturday evening, new evacuations were ordered in several municipalities near Bordeaux (southwest).
On the docks of the city of Bordeaux, orange smoke obscured the sky at dawn on Sunday, with a strong smell of burning in the streets.
The fire, which flared up around the Arcachon Bay and now threatens the outskirts of the Bordeaux metropolitan area, has ravaged 42,000 hectares—four times the size of Paris. Some 220,000 people have been evacuated since Wednesday. In the neighboring department of Landes, where the fire is "better contained but not yet controlled," 30,000 evacuations have already taken place.
The fire "will take a long time to fight" and "as long as the fire is not controlled, there will be no return" for those evacuated, warned Interior Minister Laurent Nunez in an interview Sunday with the newspaper La Tribune.
Forests ignite all the more easily as European vegetation and soils have been extremely dry for months, a phenomenon exacerbated by the exceptional heatwaves that swept across the continent in June and July, causing more water to evaporate.
Another fire also remains highly active in southeastern France, in the department of Var, a blaze that has already swept through 3,250 hectares in five days and has required periodic evacuations, totaling nearly 2,000 people.
The island of Corsica has also been battling a fire for several days that firefighters are struggling to control in Haute-Corse, which has burned over 800 hectares in the Corte sector, according to authorities.
Terrible fires are also raging in Spain.
"Today, we are a little more pessimistic than yesterday. The weather conditions, as you have seen throughout the day, have not helped at all. The night does not look very favorable; it will not be a restful one for us," Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska warned the press on Saturday.
In the evening, the evacuation of eight new municipalities in the Toledo region, west of Madrid, was ordered by authorities.
Earlier, the minister reported 60,000 people evacuated in the Madrid region, which is facing the "worst" fire in its history.
Two separate forest fires merged on Friday to form a single massive inferno, which was on the verge of merging with yet another fire in the neighboring region of Castile and León.
The raging flames have ravaged up to 25,000 hectares west of the Spanish capital.
