Out-of-control wildfires in Spain and France that have forced the evacuation of more than 200,000 people raged on Saturday near Madrid and Bordeaux, with Paris mobilising its military to help overstretched firefighters.
Thick black ash coated roof terraces of houses in the north of the centre of Madrid, an AFP journalist saw, with residents forced to keep their windows closed by the smell of throat-irritating smoke.
In Bordeaux, in southwest France, 3,500 people who had fled nearby areas — many of which had been crowded for the peak summer vacation period — sheltered in the city’s trade show complex.
The major fires in both countries have been burning for two or three days, exhausting the many hundreds of firefighters battling them around the clock.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Saturday that the French fires had ravaged nearly 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) — a “historic record” nearly 10 times the size of the city of Paris.
