In France, fires raging near the country's prized wine country of Bordeaux forced hundreds of people to flee the Cap Ferret peninsula in the middle of the summer vacation season as the blaze devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan.In Spain, two separate blazes were raging out of control within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of Madrid, with some residents of the Spanish capital waking up to the smell of smoke, according to residents. "The gendarmes came and knocked on every door, the fire was about 500 metres away -- we grabbed some things and left," Patrick Martineau, a 69-year-old resident of Le Porge, south of Bordeaux, said.Three firefighters have been killed as southern Europe endures more severe heat, with temperatures topping 40C in some areas.The total area of land burnt so far this year in EU countries is the second largest on record, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
Holidaymakers from Lege-Cap-Ferret arrive in Arcachon as the peninsula in southwestern France is evacuated © ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP
French authorities have ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast out of campsites and holiday homes, as firefighters backed by water-bombing planes raced to control the blazes.More than 23,000 people have been evacuated in the region so far.France has invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to ask for help, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, warning that the crisis remained "very intense".The EU said it would provide three water-bombing planes to France.In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the situation "dramatic"."Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday," the Madrid regional government said in a post on X.
