European wildfires threatening Madrid and French resorts have become impossible to control in some areas as hundreds of thousands, including British holidaymakers, are forced from their homes.
Large forest fires have become ‘out of control’ in southwestern France and central Spain today, sparking an evacuation of an estimated 200,000 people from their homes.
The fire in Madrid is said to put at risk a NASA and ESA communications complex, one of three comprising a network studying deep space.
About 141,000 people fled their homes in Gironde and Landes in France, while 60,000 were forced to evacuate their houses in Spain, the countries’ respective Interior ministries confirmed.
Dozens of firefighters have been injured but no deaths have been reported in either country, authorities have said.
Meanwhile, the Madrid regional government’s emergency management chief, Carlos Novillo, said the blaze near the Spanish capital was ‘at its peak’ and was beyond capacity for firefighters to tame.
The inferno is currently making its way towards the municipalities of Fresnedillas de la Oliva and Robledo de Chavela, just several dozen kilometres from the outskirts of the city.
‘It is not possible to attack the fire in that area, so defensive measures are being taken,’ Mr Novillo told the BBC.
Exactly 25,000 people have been evacuated from the region, while 20,000 more have been placed in lockdown, Madrid officials have said.
An alert message had been issued to those in Aldea del Fresno, a town west of Madrid, ordering them to leave, emergency services said. It is the first time such a measure has been taken due to a wildfire.
Beachgoers rest on the shore of Lake Lacanau, southwestern France, on July 24, 2026, as clouds of smoke rise into the sky from the Gironde wildfire
Plumes of smoke near the NASA and ESA communications complex in Robledo de Chavela, near Madrid
Firefighters battle a wildfire in Cebreros area, near Avila, 80km west of Madrid on July 24, 2026
A firefighter helicopter dumps water on a wildfire in Cebreros area, near Avila, 80km west of Madrid on July 24, 2026
A person runs as the fire spreads in the mountains of Navaluenga, Avila, on July 23, 2026
David Gonzalez who owns a Martial Arts gym for young people try to extinguish a fire outside his home in Avila
Firefighters battle a wildfire in the Cebreros region as several wildfires have burnt out of control
The last time Spain declared the same level of emergency alert was during a massive nationwide power blackout last year.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands have fled from a millionaire’s holiday paradise in France with British tourists caught up in an ‘apocalyptic’ wildfire.
Mass evacuations have been taking place throughout the day – including by boat – from Cap Ferret in southwestern France, where wildfires have burnt through thousands of hectares of forest and destroyed luxury villas.
Spain’s government has declared a national emergency amid the wildfires for the first time as the inferno in Madrid and the nearby province of Avila sparked mass evacuations.
Two major blazes near Madrid combined into one single inferno, which quickly burned through 11.5 square miles of land by Friday afternoon.
A fire in Avila, less than two hours north-west of Madrid, tore through 34 square miles, causing 1,500 people to flee.
It comes as the fires are being fanned by a heatwave with temperatures expected to hit highs of 39C (102F) in parts of Spain.
Spain’s Civil Guard has arrested one man and is investigating another for allegedly having used heavy machinery in an area where it was prohibited for fire risk.
Regional President Isabel Díaz Ayuso branded the fires as the worst in Madrid’s history.
Meanwhile, Francisco Martin, the central government representative for the region of Madrid, said more evacuations could be on the horizon.
A couple sit on the beach of Moutchic in Lacanau, southwestern France, on July 24, 2026
Residents watch the flames on hill crests as firefighters battle a wildfire in the Cebreros area, near Avila, Madrid
A firefighter sprays water on a scorched field, surrounded by burnt trees, following a wildfire in Cotignac, southeastern France
A firefighter suffers an open fracture after a gas cylinder explodes as the Saumos forest fire reaches a house on the outskirts of Lege-Cap-Ferret, Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France, on July 23
Wildfires advance near the Le Proge region, western France, on Thursday
He said the priority was now to protect the town of San Lorenzo, the home of the Escorial, Philip II’s 16th-century royal palace and monastery.
Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo whose residents were evacuated, said: ‘In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions.
Footage taken by Spanish broadcasters showed residents retreating as sky-high flames with plumes of smoke barrelled through the woods and scrublands.
High winds and hilly terrain complicated efforts by firefighters, who combated the blazes with fire engines and bulldozers.
‘All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,’ Joaquin Espinosa, 33, said.
He and his neighbours were evacuated from the village of Chapineria, located less than an hour away from Madrid.
It comes as Spain has had the worst fires on record for both the regions of Castilla-La Mancha as well as Madrid in just one week.
Firefighters were still battling Spain’s second biggest ever fire in Castilla-La Mancha province over the last week.
Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.
On Friday morning, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said ‘Spain and neighbouring countries’ were experiencing a ‘dramatic situation’ due to the massive fires that spread simultaneously across western Europe.
‘The forest fires are ravaging thousands of hectares and affecting numerous towns and villages,’ the Spanish leader wrote on X on Friday. He also urged Spaniards to ‘follow the instructions’ of officials.
‘Climate change is what kills, what destroys our villages and our natural and cultural heritage,’ civil protection chief Virginia Barcones told Spanish radio.
She warned some fires become so intense that, despite the deployment of aircraft and ground crews, firefighters stand ‘no chance’.
Ms Barcones said conditions at the Guadalajara blaze were improving but that strong winds and extreme heat remained a danger.
Eighteen firefighting units with specialist troops were working to contain the blaze near the city of Toledo, close to another wildfire that forced the evacuation of several villages on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in southwestern France, distressed tourists are anxiously fleeing the beloved getaway either on boats or by the only road linking the area with the mainland.
An estimated 92,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, while in southwestern France further evacuations of around 67,000 residents further south were ordered after a separate wildfire broke out.
Pictured: The remains of a property in Lege-Cap-Ferret after a fire tore through the outskirts of the French commune
A fast-moving wildfire reaches the outskirts of Lege-Cap-Ferret after worsening weather conditions fuel its rapid spread
‘It’s quite impressive and even frightening,’ said Laurent Moretti, an Ares town resident. ‘An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.’
More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The new evacuations were carried out by road, with boat shuttles provided for people who could not travel by their own means.
Local authorities in the Gironde department said 53 homes and a campsite have been engulfed by the flames, adding that 42 firefighters were injured.
Around 1,500 people who fled the peninsula arrived by sea in the city of Arcachon, some aboard small water taxis and others on larger boats.
Ross Fitzsimmons and his wife Natasha from Hampton, south-west London were forced to leave their holiday villa in the village of Claouey on Thursday, when forest fires surged towards them.
Mr Fitzsimmons, 70, who runs a bespoke framing business, arrived last Saturday with his wife and their two children, and had originally planned to stay for a week but instead, was forced to drive to Bordeaux.
‘It’s absolutely heartbreaking because the whole Cap Ferret peninsula is such a special place, the smell of the pine, the pristine beaches,’ he said.
‘The pretty villages by the bay, but to see the forests being destroyed by a wildfire 19 times larger than Richmond Park is devastating.
‘The region is nicknamed the Hamptons of France but it doesn’t do it justice, as it’s far less pretentious and much more beautiful.’
Mr Fitzsimmons described how he could see the blaze around 12 miles away on Wednesday night from his local beach.
‘At that point we weren’t concerned all that much because we were here in 2022, and they had wildfires then. [They] had dug trenches and built fire breaks to help contain future outbreaks,’ he said.
‘But by the following morning, smoke had replaced the clouds and ash was falling from the sky as we ate breakfast. We were getting increasingly nervous.
‘It was clear that the fire was spreading and that we probably needed to move fast as there’s only one main road in and out of the peninsula, which was obviously going to close if the fire got worse.’
As the family was anxiously packing, they heard an official on a megaphone ‘driving around the village’, warning people to evacuate.
‘We got out about 4pm yesterday in our hire cars and the whole village was deserted. All the shops were closed and there was hardly a soul around. We’d hired bikes but the hire shop was shut so we left them chained up outside,’ Mr Fitzsimmons said.
‘There were gendarmes and other emergency workers lining much of the road out of the peninsula, it was eerie.’
The fires, which began on Tuesday in Saumos, Gironde, have burned for days, with 10,000 hectares (almost 25,000 acres) of land being consumed by the flames.
A 90-minute drive from Bordeaux, the string of fishing villages is a popular destination for Paris’s elite, often compared to the Hamptons in America.
French residents have described the inferno ravaging parts of the country as ‘mega-fire’ and ‘apocalyptic’.
French President Emmanuel Macron has requested urgent help from the European Union as the country’s growing battle against wildfires intensifies.
‘It breaks my heart. Because it’s such a pleasant place to live, seeing it go up in smoke is truly sad,’ said family caregiver Corinne Paillaube.
‘It’s totally apocalyptic,’ said Ambre Dubos, from the nearby Landes region.
People are being told to leave via the main D106 road towards Bordeaux while vessels were being made available for others between 7am and 10am local time (6am BST and 9am BST) from four piers
The Cap Ferret peninsula has a year-round population of just under 8,000 but that can swell by ten times in peak summer season
People in Lege-Cap-Ferret watch as flames tear through a forest
Luxury homes are erupting in flames as desperate tourists flee down a single road off the ‘French Hamptons’ peninsula amid gigantic wildfires
A bulldozer works to make a firewall as firefighters battle a wildfire in Cebreros area, near Avila, west of Madrid
‘France has requested the activation of the European Union’s civil protection mechanism.
‘We will soon be able to count on reinforcements from two Croatian Canadair aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor planes, as well as two heavy Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia,’ wrote Mr Macron on X on Friday.
Further down the Atlantic coast, around the town of Biscarrosse in France’s Landes region, another major blaze that began on Thursday afternoon has triggered the evacuations of more than 23,000 people.
Sophie Brocas, the prefect for the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, ordered the ‘final phase’ of the peninsula evacuation early on Friday morning.
People are being told to leave via the main D106 road towards Bordeaux while vessels were being made available for others between 7am and 10am local time (6am BST and 9am BST) from four piers.
Aircraft from Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are on their way to assist in the emergency, which the local prefect has described as an ‘XXL fire’.
Meanwhile, thousands of emergency workers in Italy battled scores of fires in Sicily and in the Calabria region, where a local official said arsonists had started fires by tying rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread the flames.
Along with the stray cats, investigators found candles and delayed ignition devices.
Domenico Costarella, of Calabria’s civil protection agency, said: ‘These animals were released into the fields, running around and spreading the fire.’
EU crisis management commissioner Hadja Lahbib said Thursday that the bloc was providing three water-bombing planes to France.
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