Wildfires burning across southern France and spreading into Spain have forced more than 300,000 people to flee, with further heatwaves expected during the week. Emmanuel Macron holds a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday while Pedro Sanchez visits fire-hit Valencia. France's finance minister says the crisis has hit the local economy.
Wildfires ravaging southern France and spreading into Spain have forced more than 300,000 people to flee ahead of further heatwaves expected during the week. French President Emmanuel Macron is set to hold a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday, while Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit areas hit by fires in Valencia, in the east of Spain.
Gironde fire burns 42,000 hectares
The fire began on Wednesday in Gironde, in the southwest of France, and has burned 42,000 hectares — nearly 104,000 acres — forcing one of the largest evacuations in France's history, according to French broadcaster France 24 and local news outlets. The wildfires have also affected 77,000 hectares, around 190,000 acres, of the Avila and Toledo areas in western Madrid.
According to France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, writing on X on Saturday: "The situation remains highly unfavorable". He said the fire became extremely virulent and unpredictable again overnight in Gironde, generating its own wind and spreading erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area, before calming down somewhat by the end of the night.
Since the start of the disaster, 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and nearly 1,200 police have been deployed to bring the fire under control, Nunez said. The Gironde prefecture, the main government centre for the Bordeaux area, said on Monday that the situation remained generally stable during the night from Sunday to Monday, with no major developments to report.
Finance minister points to a blow to the local economy
But the fires have already reached the economy. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the crisis has delivered a blow to the local economy, telling reporters the area could have done without it.
France's Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Saturday called the wildfires a historic situation for the country, with nearly 100,000 hectares — 247,000 acres — burned since the beginning of the year, a level he described as unprecedented. Firefighter Captain Nicolas Braz told AFP the blaze has been labelled an extremely dangerous and rare pyrocumulonimbus, a type of fire cloud that generates its own winds and whirlwinds, making it erratic and unmanageable.
Abandoned farmland is feeding the flames
Stefan Doerr, a professor of wildland fire science at Swansea University, said climate change and poor landscape management are contributing to the increasing intensity of the fires. The abandonment of agricultural land in parts of southern Europe, especially in the Mediterranean and parts of Madrid, has allowed flammable grasses, shrubs and dense forests to spread, making fires harder to contain during extreme heat and drought, Doerr said on CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."
In addition, Doerr pointed to a third consecutive heatwave that dried out the landscape, which means that once there is an ignition, it can escalate into a very severe fire. He acknowledged Europe has strengthened its firefighting capacity, but argued it has not made enough progress in reducing wildfire risk before blazes start.
Source: CNBC
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