Video: watson/Emanuella Kälin
Extreme weather
July 23, 2026, 11:28July 23, 2026, 11:28
Due to an expanding forest fire on the French Atlantic coast near Bordeaux, 10,000 tourists have now been evacuated as a precaution.
The prefecture of the Gironde department announced this morning that holidaymakers from eight holiday centers and three campsites were affected. In addition, around 1,000 residents of various places were evacuated. The prefecture emphasized that no one had been injured so far.
Tourists evacuated: forest fires rage in France and Spain
Video: watson/Emanuella Kälin
2,500 of the evacuees were temporarily accommodated in nine towns in the region. The gendarmerie accompanied the evacuations and secured the affected holiday facilities.
The fire that broke out on Wednesday afternoon in the town of Saumos has already spread to an area of 2,000 hectares and has moved first to the town of Le Porge and then to Lège Cap-Ferret. 500 firefighters are still working on the very violent fire and are trying to contain it step by step. The situation remains unfavorable, the prefecture emphasized.
Additional firefighting aircraft were to be deployed to the region in the morning. On Wednesday evening, four firefighting aircraft and 150 emergency vehicles were already deployed against the flames.
Forest fire northeast of Madrid out of control
Devastating forest fires have also been raging in Spain for a week. In the province of Guadalajara, the flames have destroyed around 32,000 hectares of land – an area the size of the canton of Schaffhausen. This makes the fire one of the largest in Spain’s recent history.
34 towns were evacuated and around 1,200 people were brought to safety. The emergency services are cautiously optimistic that the fire northeast of Madrid will be brought under control in the coming days. According to initial findings, the fire was probably caused by agricultural work. (sda/dpa)