The French Interior Minister said on Monday that a massive forest fire had stopped growing after forcing 220,000 people from their homes in the southwest of the country, but he warned that it had not yet been overcome.
Minister Laurent Nunez said: “Things did not progress during the night.” “We have to stay focused and very determined to leave at any moment.”
He spoke after French President Emmanuel Macron held a crisis meeting on Monday focused on efforts to combat massive fires in the Gironde region and wildfires elsewhere.
The Gironde fire burned an area equivalent to four times the size of Paris. The region’s prefecture said the situation overnight remained “globally stable” – a change from previous days as the giant fire raging since last week approached the wine region city of Bordeaux.
In the neighboring southwestern region of Landes, where hundreds of firefighters are making progress battling another fierce but smaller blaze, the prefecture said some rain fell overnight and described conditions as “favorable” for fighting the fires but also warned that could change.
No new evacuations were announced. But with France about to enter its peak tourist season in August, Gironde authorities have taken further steps to keep holidaymakers away, banning holiday camps for children and people with disabilities.
Firefighters race to confront the upcoming heat wave
With thousands of firefighters on the ground and planes taking turns dropping water and retardant in the air, efforts to fight the massive fires were locked in a race against time, struggling to make progress before an expected rise in temperatures from Tuesday could make fighting the flames more difficult.
Crews using earthmovers tore up strips of forest and shrubland to create barren clearings, aiming to prevent the fires from spreading. The farmers supplied the fire brigades with water, and transported it to them in tanks. About a dozen countries provided planes, helicopters, firefighters and other aid to France and Spain, which are also battling unprecedented fires. In total, the fires in both countries forced more than 330,000 people to flee.
Macron did not immediately comment after the government crisis meeting he chaired. In a weekend post on Channel
Spain is battling its largest fires on record
In Spain, forest fires burned out of control around Madrid and in the Valencia region. The authorities evacuated 76,000 people and detained 30,000 others in their homes.
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In both Spain and France, the extraordinary scale of fires – fueled by heatwaves that hit particularly hard early this year, drying out forests and grasslands – has prompted calls for stronger action against climate change.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: “What we are witnessing is not a series of isolated incidents. It is the result of a climate emergency that is making forest fires more violent and heat waves more frequent.”
The fire that broke out in the mountainous rural area of Avila, west of Madrid, has become the largest ever in Spain, scorching 50,000 hectares (193 square miles), the government said. This is five times the area of Barcelona.
Sarah Agesen, the Spanish Minister of the Environment, said that fires have destroyed 153,000 hectares (590 square miles) this year in Spain, six times the area where fires burned in the first half of 2025.
The minister said forecasts of another heatwave from Tuesday – which would be the fourth in Spain so far this year – could increase the risk of fires.
Evacuees are worried about what they will find when they are allowed to return to fire-affected areas.
“It looked like the end of the world. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocio Dominguez, who evacuated with her dog Simba, from Chapineria, west of Madrid.
“We don’t know when we reach the city, if we will burn half the house, keep it intact, or not have a home,” she said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”
Planes dropping water fight fires in Italy
A wildfire caused by strong winds broke out Sunday afternoon near Peschiche in the Puglia region of southern Italy, burning pine forests and shrubs and forcing the evacuation of about 300 tourists from beaches and campsites, authorities said.
The Coast Guard evacuated the tourists by sea to nearby Vieste, where authorities opened temporary shelters.
Three Canadair water bombing planes and fire crews on the ground continued Monday to battle the blaze, which revived memories of devastating wildfires that struck the same coastal region in 2007.
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