(VIDEO) Wildfires Force 250,000 to Flee Homes in France and Spain as Tour de France Final Stage Is Cut Short

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — France dispatched a military cargo plane to douse wildfires with tons of flame retardant on Saturday, while organizers shortened the final stage of the Tour de France to redirect security personnel toward the blazes, as wildfires across France and Spain forced more than 250,000 people from their homes this week.

The fires, among the most severe to strike southern Europe this summer, have displaced roughly 70,000 people in central Spain alone. One person has died so far: a man in the municipality of Manises, part of Spain’s wildfire-hit Valencia region, according to a statement from local officials.

A giant aircraft joins the fight in France

In southwestern France, an A400M military transport plane specially converted for firefighting swept low over drought-stricken woodland, trailing a long plume of ochre-colored retardant as ground crews battled flames authorities feared could reach the wine-producing city of Bordeaux. The aircraft joined at least 18 other water- and retardant-dropping planes and helicopters working in rotation through smoke-filled skies over the Gironde region, according to French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez.

The scale of the response prompted race organizers and the Paris police department to shorten Sunday’s 21st and final stage of the Tour de France, France’s marquee annual sporting event. Rather than starting from Thoiry, west of Paris, as originally planned, riders will race a circuit inside the capital covering 89 kilometers, cut by roughly a third from the previously scheduled 133-kilometer route. Organizers said part of the race’s security detail would instead reinforce emergency response efforts in the fire-affected areas, describing the change as one of several “exceptional measures made necessary by the situation.”

Shifting winds threaten Bordeaux

Nunez said winds were expected to shift from west to east on Saturday afternoon, potentially pushing flames closer to Bordeaux. Fire crews and authorities responded by digging containment trenches, applying retardant and taking other measures to slow the fire’s advance. Nunez predicted a “long and very difficult” fight ahead, noting the blaze remained about 30 kilometers west of the city, though it had lost some intensity overnight.

The regional prefect overseeing Gironde said the fire had grown into “a firestorm” on Friday after igniting earlier in the week, adding that it “remains dangerous” even as firefighters made incremental progress. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called the fires unprecedented, saying the Gironde blaze had grown so intense by Friday that it began generating its own wind patterns. The government mobilized soldiers to support fire crews and rushed 1.5 million face masks into the region to protect residents and responders from choking smoke.

Authorities ordered evacuations for people caught between the fire and Bordeaux, including residents in parts of the city’s western suburbs and surrounding towns and villages. Alerts instructing people to leave were sent directly to residents’ mobile phones, according to Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who said the fire had already destroyed approximately 140 homes in the region.

In Bordeaux itself, officials opened an exhibition center to shelter evacuees, offering food and temporary housing, with the city’s mayor saying the facility could accommodate as many as 10,000 people if needed. The city’s airport remained open, though its bus and tram services were suspended.

Spain faces its own fast-moving crisis

West of Madrid, Spanish authorities deployed 2,600 firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel to battle two separate blazes, supported by 19 water-dropping aircraft and helicopters. Firefighters described the fires as moving too fast and violently to confront directly.

Among the hardest-hit communities was El Tiemblo, where flames tore through a historic chestnut grove and left residents scrambling to protect their town. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Javier Organista, a resident of El Tiemblo. “When we saw the flames coming into our town, surrounding us, leaving us with practically no way out, all the neighbors joined together to try to stop its advance.” Reflecting on the damage, he added simply, “It’s just really sad.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, visiting a command post west of Madrid on Saturday, said improving weather conditions offered “a window of opportunity” for crews to gain control of the fires. Officials in Madrid’s regional government said the blazes had already begun decreasing in intensity as winds and temperatures eased somewhat over the weekend.

Sánchez noted that wildfires have already burned roughly 130,000 hectares of forest in Spain so far this year, well above the country’s annual average of about 100,000 hectares over the past decade.

Climate change fuels a dangerous pattern

Officials and fire crews across both countries pointed to an unusually early and intense series of heat waves this year as a key driver behind the fires’ speed and severity. Successive record-breaking temperatures have dried out forests and scrubland across the region, turning them into tinderboxes vulnerable to rapid ignition and spread.

In France, 1,400 firefighters were deployed to the Gironde blaze, with hundreds more sent to a separate wildfire farther south in the Landes region. Authorities said dozens of firefighters had suffered injuries amid chaotic evacuation scenes, with police going door to door urging residents to leave and some people fleeing coastal tourist towns by boat as flames approached.

International support mobilizes

Several other European nations have stepped in to help contain the fires. Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland have either sent or pledged to deploy water-dropping aircraft and helicopters to reinforce firefighting efforts in both France and Spain.

With winds shifting and weather conditions offering only a narrow opening for progress, officials in both countries cautioned that the fight was far from over, even as crews pressed to take advantage of any lull before conditions could worsen again.