The fires burning across southwestern France and central Spain have produced one of the largest civilian displacement operations on the continent since the Second World War, and the brief window of overnight progress achieved between 27 and 28 July may not survive the week. A further heatwave is arriving.
More than 300,000 people have been evacuated across the two countries — over 250,000 in France, with 220,000 of those in the Gironde department alone, and between 73,000 and 76,000 in Spain as of 28 July, according to Reuters and AP. The Gironde fire, which ignited on 22 July near Bordeaux, had burned approximately 42,000 hectares across six days and destroyed at least 240 homes by that date, among them many properties in the village of Le Porge, according to Euronews and phys.org. France's weather service, Météo-France, was forecasting temperatures of up to 40°C from Tuesday.
French President Emmanuel Macron described the situation as
Comments (0)