Updated on: July 29, 2026 / 11:55 AM EDT
/ CBS/AP
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Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a blaze on the Greek island of Crete, officials said, while crews in southern France worked to extinguish a massive, uncontained wildfire that had spread to roughly four times the size of Paris. Across Europe, firefighters confronted a dangerous combination of high temperatures, drought and powerful winds, compromising containment efforts.The deaths on Crete brought a fatal new dimension to a wildfire emergency stretching from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.In France's Gironde region, authorities said the blaze had not spread during a calm night. But temperatures forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and strengthening afternoon winds threatened to turn that respite into only a brief reprieve.The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations.
A De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 drops fire retardant over a forest near Saint-Jean-d'Illac, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
