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.

Fires move closer to Madrid and Bordeaux, which are home more than eight million people in total

Luggage-clad residents and tourists fled a French peninsula by boat and the smell of smoke drifted into parts of Madrid on Friday as wildfires swept through parts of western…