LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — Uncontrolled wildfires tearing through southwestern France have triggered a sweeping new wave of evacuations, forcing 55,000 additional residents to flee their homes overnight Sunday. This new displacement pushes the total number of people evacuated from the Gironde region alone — the country’s renowned wine-producing area home to the historic city of Bordeaux — to 220,000, as fast-spreading flames draw steadily closer to the city’s urban core.
Regional officials confirmed overnight evacuation orders for five more communities located southwest of Bordeaux, a centuries-old city celebrated globally for its wine industry and cultural heritage. According to an official statement, strong gusting winds amplified the blaze through the overnight hours, supercharging the spread of a fire that has burned without containment since the middle of last week.
The prefect of Gironde also implemented a partial closure of a major highway running southwest out of Bordeaux, a key transport link for the region, to support emergency response efforts and keep residents out of harm’s way. Bordeaux’s mayor emphasized in a public update that the fire remains an immediate threat to the metropolitan area, with the closest edge of the blaze now sitting just 15 kilometers, or roughly 9 miles, from the city’s outer limits.
A second large-scale wildfire, burning hundreds of kilometers south in France’s Landes region, has forced another 30,000 people to evacuate since the outbreak began earlier this week. When combined, the two French blazes have now displaced more than 250,000 people total. The crisis is not confined to France, either: neighboring Spain is also facing its own severe wildfire emergency, with authorities reporting that 70,000 people have been evacuated from areas west of Madrid this week as blazes spread across the region amid hot, dry conditions.