Wildfires drive 250,000 people from homes and edge towards wine city of Bordeaux

A raging wildfire in southwest France led to the evacuation of 55,000 people overnight on Sunday, taking the total forced out of their homes to 220,000 in one region alone as the flames have crept ever closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux.

Authorities in the Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities southwest of the historic city.

In neighbouring Spain, authorities oversaw a new round of evacuations because of wildfires in the Valencia region, on the country’s east coast.

Uncontrolled blazes there and others west of Madrid this week have forced 116,000 people out of their homes.

In southwest France, gusting winds fed the flames overnight, accelerating the spread of the fire that has been burning out of control since midweek, the Gironde prefecture said.

The area that has burned, much of it pine forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heatwaves this year, has grown inexorably, expanding by Sunday to an estimated 162 square miles, the Gironde prefecture said.

That is four times the size of Paris.

Firefighters are battling to slow the flames’ progression toward Bordeaux, both on the ground and in the air, with planes dropping water and retardants.

Soldiers have been called in to reinforce fire crews’ exhausting round-the-clock efforts.

Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave described the fire as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area”, having advanced to about nine miles from the city at its closest point.

The Gironde prefect ordered the partial closure of a major road heading in and out of the city.

A second fire burning farther south in the Landes region has also forced the evacuation of 30,000 people this week, taking the total driven out of their homes in the southwest to more than 250,000.