Global Pulse

分类： environment

  • Thousands sheltered in Bordeaux as France wildfires trigger exodus

    Thousands sheltered in Bordeaux as France wildfires trigger exodus

    A sprawling wildfire tearing through southwestern France’s popular coastal region has forced one of the largest emergency evacuations in modern French history, leaving thousands of tourists and local residents taking refuge in a makeshift shelter at Bordeaux’s exhibition center.

    The fast-moving blazes, which have stretched hundreds of firefighters to their limit over recent days, have cut through pine forests near the iconic Arcachon Bay — an area famous for its towering sand dunes, coastal oyster industry, and upscale vacation getaways like the Cap Ferret peninsula. As flames spread unexpectedly rapidly, authorities ordered the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from at-risk towns and villages, with most evacuees arriving at the Bordeaux shelter under cover of night.

    Inside the converted exhibition hall, rows of camp beds stretch across the floor and stacks of donated food supplies line the walls, as displaced residents and stranded tourists work to regain their footing after a chaotic escape. Smoke still lingers in the air over Bordeaux, though conditions have improved from the previous evening, when thick acrid fumes blanketed the city; protective masks are available to any shelter resident who requests one. Even amid the upheaval, ordinary life carries on in small ways: children kick footballs and play badminton to pass the time, some evacuees bring their pets along (with pet food and litter provided by organizers), and elderly residents are transported to the shelter via chartered buses for safe access.

    For many evacuees, the experience is unprecedented. Seventy-five-year-old Irish tourist Nuala Kelly, a world traveler who has encountered a wide range of unexpected situations during her journeys, called the wildfire crisis something she never expected to face. “It’s an experience, you know, I would be happy to do without it, but everybody’s been very kind here, very good, so we have to be thankful,” she told reporters from AFP at the shelter.

    Thirty-eight-year-old Olivier Stewart, who fled the threatened town of Merignac with his wife and young children after receiving an emergency evacuation alert, said the youngest family members bear the brunt of the stress. “The children are the most stressed. They think the fire is going to burn down the house, but we’re coping,” he explained.

    Seventy-year-old retiree Frederic Tavitian, who lives 50 kilometers from the fire zone, described plumes of smoke rising from the forest like an erupting volcano moments before he received his evacuation order. Traffic jams stretched his journey to the shelter to four hours, and he said he had been unable to sleep through the night due to constant noise from the crowded facility. “It’s really tough. That’s the way it is. We just have to live with it,” he said, sitting on his camp bed with a guitar he brought along for comfort.

    Community support has poured in from across Bordeaux to support the evacuees. Local residents have opened their spare rooms to displaced families, while volunteer medical staff have set up an on-site first aid station to address immediate health needs, including monitoring for dehydration and checking in on vulnerable children and elderly residents. Fifty-five-year-old local engineer David Duval was one of the locals who stepped up to offer accommodation. “It breaks my heart when I see all these people in distress. We have to think about what each of us can do,” he explained. Nurse Marie Decroix, who is working the first aid station, walks between groups of families documenting needs and sharing public health guidance, providing critical support to people shaken by their sudden displacement.

    Hundreds of firefighters remain on the front lines battling the blazes, as evacuees wait anxiously for updates on whether their homes and communities have survived the flames, and many vacationers have seen their summer getaways cut abruptly short by the crisis.

  • Fleeing a wall of flames: Tourists describe France wildfires escape

    Fleeing a wall of flames: Tourists describe France wildfires escape

    What was supposed to be a peaceful summer getaway for hundreds of tourists and local residents across southwestern France and central Spain turned into a frantic race for survival last week, as out-of-control wildfires tore through dry forest landscapes, forcing mass evacuations that have now displaced more than 220,000 people across both countries. As high winds and record-breaking heat continue to stoke the fast-moving blazes, France has deployed military personnel to assist overstretched firefighting teams, while Spain has declared a national state of emergency to coordinate response efforts.

    Multiple tourists who escaped the fire zones shared harrowing firsthand accounts of their ordeals with the BBC, describing chaotic overnight evacuation orders, last-minute escapes that brought them just hundreds of meters from towering 6-story flames, and thousands of displaced people crowding local beaches with all their belongings in tow. Even areas far from the active fire lines report acrid, bonfire-like smoke hanging in the air, a constant reminder of the crisis unfolding nearby.

    Zac Morrison, a 21-year-old London resident who arrived at the popular pine-covered Cap Ferret peninsula in southwestern France with 10 family members on Thursday, woke just hours after checking in to two emergency text alerts ordering immediate evacuation ‘by all means necessary’ at 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. He told reporters that French gendarmerie went door-to-door to clear the peninsula, an experience he described as ‘something like out of a movie.’ After evacuating the first fire zone, Morrison’s family was once again placed in the crosshairs of a second spreading blaze, receiving four separate evacuation updates in the days that followed, the most recent arriving Friday afternoon. The family sheltered on a public beach in nearby Arcachon before securing emergency accommodation with a relative, and 11-year-old Nate Morrison, Zac’s brother, has still not processed the trauma of seeing the wild flames firsthand. Morrison noted that many other displaced residents and tourists have been forced to sleep in temporary shelters like schools and warehouses, while hundreds wait on beaches for further instructions, luggage in hand. His family remains in limbo, waiting for official word on whether they can return to their holiday accommodation planned through mid-August. ‘It rained last night but we are hearing that electricity may be cut out over the peninsula, especially as the ash clouds go towards Bordeaux… I’ve heard about houses burning in just an hour, it’s scary but sadly people here are getting used to it,’ Morrison said.

    British visitor David Morton, who was wrapping up a week-long holiday to Cap Ferret with his wife and two teenage sons, said his trip was upended on day five when the dry pine forest and extreme heat created ideal conditions for the fire to spread. He told the BBC that his entire family was woken Friday morning by blaring emergency alerts on their phones, ordering immediate evacuation along the only exit road off the peninsula. ‘We literally threw everything into our suitcases and within 15 minutes were in the hire car,’ Morton explained. The family drove within 500 meters of the main blaze, where Morton said flames reached heights taller than full-grown pine trees, equivalent to five or six stories, and the fire was clearly out of control. The family stayed with local friends until their scheduled flight home from Bordeaux departed Saturday.

    Not everyone managed to evacuate in time, however. Rebecca Papin, a French-American visiting her holiday home in Biscarrosse, a commune near Cap Ferret, spotted a large plume of smoke in the distance Thursday afternoon. By the time she returned home three hours later, the sky was filled with water-bombing planes and firefighter helicopters, and the horizon was lined with a solid wall of flames. She told BBC Radio 4’s *Today* programme that authorities appeared overwhelmed by the speed of the blaze and never issued a formal evacuation order to her area. Papin, who slept with earplugs to block out the noise of emergency aircraft overnight, missed overnight evacuation alerts and woke Friday morning to find nearly the entire city evacuated, with her still trapped inside. ‘The main roads are closed because they’re on fire – the police advised me on Friday morning at 7.30am to stay in my home, to not leave my home under any circumstance; there was ash falling from the sky like snow,’ she said.

    The wildfire crisis has not been limited to France. In central Spain, multiple blazes are burning in regions outside of Madrid, and authorities are working around the clock to prevent separate fire fronts from merging into one massive, uncontrollable blaze. The flames have already forced the closure of a NASA facility 37 kilometers west of Madrid. Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso has called the blaze the ‘worst fire in the history of the region,’ noting the area is facing a ‘perfect storm’ of record high temperatures, constant gusty winds, and merging fire fronts that makes containment extremely difficult.

    Despite the severity of the crisis, major travel links have remained largely unaffected: commercial flights to Bordeaux and Madrid, the two largest cities closest to the fire zones, are still operating normally. French officials have urged foreign tourists not to cancel planned trips to the country, noting that the vast majority of French regions remain unaffected by the blazes. Éléonore Caroit, France’s minister for international partnerships, told reporters Saturday: ‘You have entire areas that are fine, you’re seeing similar phenomena in Spain and other countries. I’m in Paris and nothing is happening, and most other regions are OK, so do please come to France and do not cancel your travel plans. But wherever you are, please do be advised as to what might be happening.’ The UK Foreign Office has also not issued any advisory against travel to France or Spain, despite the ongoing emergency. The UK has had multiple of its own citizens caught up in evacuations, and many have relocated to other regions of France to continue their holidays after fleeing the fire zones.

  • ‘Upheaval’ – French wildfire evacuations in the middle of the night

    ‘Upheaval’ – French wildfire evacuations in the middle of the night

    In the dead of night, roaring wildfires sweeping through southwestern France have forced urgent evacuations, leaving a community of elderly and vulnerable care home residents dislocated and reeling from sudden upheaval. Staff at the facility, who spoke on condition of anonymity to regional media, described chaotic, high-stakes hours scrambling to move residents with limited time and resources amid spreading flames and worsening air quality.

    Unusually dry conditions and record summer temperatures across Western Europe have created a tinderbox in the region, priming vegetation for rapid fire spread that has outpaced initial containment efforts. Many of the care home’s residents have limited mobility or chronic health conditions, requiring extra support to evacuate safely in the middle of the night, when most were already asleep.

    Care workers recounted carrying residents out one by one, coordinating with emergency services to secure temporary shelter at alternate facilities kilometers away from the fire zone. For many of these vulnerable people, the sudden displacement has added significant emotional and physical stress, with some separated from personal belongings and familiar routines that are critical to their well-being.

    Local emergency management officials have confirmed that multiple communities across southwest France have been evacuated in recent days as wildfires expand, with more than a thousand hectares of forest and scrubland already burned. The care home evacuation stands out as a stark example of how extreme wildfire events, amplified by climate change, disproportionately impact the most vulnerable members of society, testing emergency response systems that are already stretched thin by a growing number of climate-driven disasters.

  • Untamed wildfires force over 160,000 to flee in France, Spain

    Untamed wildfires force over 160,000 to flee in France, Spain

    In a devastating outbreak of climate-fueled wildfires that has become one of the most extreme weather emergencies Western Europe has faced in modern history, more than 160,000 people have been displaced across France and Spain, with emergency crews stretched to breaking point and military forces deployed to battle the raging infernos.

    The crisis unfolded over three days of relentless burning, with large blazes breaking out simultaneously near Bordeaux in southwestern France and on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain. By Saturday, the scale of displacement had reached staggering levels: 141,000 residents and tourists were evacuated from fire zones in France, while 25,000 more fled the Madrid region, with an additional 39,000 people ordered to shelter in place to avoid toxic smoke. The smoke from the Madrid wildfires drifted as far as the city’s center by early Saturday, a stark reminder of how close the disaster has come to one of Europe’s major capital cities.

    The fires have been amplified by exceptionally dry conditions, created by a string of record-breaking heatwaves that have parched forests across the Iberian Peninsula and southern France since May. Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that rising global temperatures are increasing the frequency and severity of droughts and extreme weather events, creating the tinder-dry conditions that allow wildfires to grow rapidly out of control.

    In France, officials have described the Bordeaux-region blaze as the largest wildfire the nation has ever recorded. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered military intervention on Friday, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu later announced that 1,000 military personnel would be deployed to support overstretched firefighters who have been working around the clock to contain the flames. To date, the fire has destroyed more than 22,000 hectares of land – an area roughly twice the size of the city of Paris. Authorities also arranged for 1.5 million protective face masks to be delivered to the Gironde department to protect first responders and local residents from toxic smoke inhalation.

    The blaze near Bordeaux poses an additional high-stakes risk: it is advancing toward the broader Bordeaux wine region, which is home to many of the world’s most famous and prestigious wineries. Among the hardest-hit evacuation zones is the upscale Cap Ferret peninsula, where 44,000 people fled, hundreds of them escaping by boat as flames closed in on coastal roads. So far, 40 firefighters have been injured battling the Cap Ferret blaze, part of a rising toll that has seen three firefighters killed in wildfires across France and Italy this week alone.

    Tens of thousands of evacuees are now sheltering in emergency facilities set up in local schools, gymnasiums, and large public hangars, many unsure if their homes will still stand when they are allowed to return. Ninety-year-old Maria Lalanne, who evacuated from Lege Cap Ferret to a gym in Andernos, told reporters she had left her glasses and hearing aid behind in the rush to escape. Living with pre-existing heart disease and high blood pressure, she said she had no information about the fate of her home. “I don’t know how long all this will last. I don’t know how my house is, whether it has burnt,” she said.

    Forty-nine-year-old Caroline Larrode, who fled her home in Saumos with her three cats, said she had nowhere else to go and ended up in a large Bordeaux hangar housing evacuees from the Arcachon Basin. “We had no one to put us up,” she explained.

    In Spain, the situation remains equally critical. Two of the three large wildfires burning west of Madrid have already merged into a single massive blaze, which is just kilometers from merging into an even larger inferno on the capital’s doorstep. Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government’s environment chief, warned Friday that the fire was “at its peak and… currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain” the blaze. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez planned to visit the fire-ravaged region on Saturday to attend an emergency response meeting in the fire-stricken village of Cenicientos, followed by a press briefing to update the public on the response effort.

    Luis, an audiovisual technician who grew up in a suburban town near the fire zone, had spent an afternoon helping evacuate residents from Pelayos de la Presa when he received his own evacuation order. “I cried at first because it’s where I grew up. But now, it’s more a feeling of anger and resignation, because there’s nothing we can do as long as we’re not allowed to go back and see what we’ll find there,” he told Agence France-Presse.

    Francisco Martín, the Spanish central government’s delegate in Madrid, said a forecast dip in temperatures on Saturday offered a small window of opportunity for firefighters. “There is a real opportunity now to tackle this fire with some guarantee of success,” he said, though he warned that the day would still be challenging, with erratic, rising wind gusts expected through the morning.

    Spain’s largest active wildfire, burning in Guadalajara province roughly 100 kilometers north of Madrid, has already scorched more than 32,000 hectares of land. Both France and Spain have formally requested assistance from the European Union to support their overwhelmed emergency response teams, as hundreds of firefighters on both sides of the border work to the point of exhaustion to contain the blazes.

  • Wildfire leads to evacuations in some suburbs of the French city of Bordeaux

    Wildfire leads to evacuations in some suburbs of the French city of Bordeaux

    In the summer of an escalating climate crisis, two of Western Europe’s most popular destinations are grappling with out-of-control wildfires that have forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes, with flames now pushing toward the iconic French wine hub of Bordeaux.

    The emergency unfolded rapidly across southwestern France and central Spain this week, with record-high temperatures and prolonged drought amplified by climate change turning vast forested areas into tinder that fueled fires of unprecedented ferocity. Officials in both nations have acknowledged they were caught off guard by the speed and intensity of the advancing flames, which have overwhelmed initial firefighting deployments.

    In France, the blaze that began Wednesday near the Atlantic coastal vacation spot of Cap Ferret — just 37 miles southwest of Bordeaux — has swelled in size driven by strong westerly winds. By Friday, Gironde region prefect Sophie Brocas confirmed the fire had reached an “unprecedented magnitude” and was steadily advancing on the Bordeaux metropolitan area. Overnight Saturday, authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for portions of three western suburbs of Bordeaux, including the city’s airport, plus additional communities further west beyond the immediate metro area.

    “As the fire continues to spread, and despite the significant resources deployed by firefighters, the evacuation of residents from the affected areas is required to ensure their safety,” the prefecture’s official statement read. Targeted residents received emergency alert notifications directly to their mobile devices with clear evacuation instructions, and authorities have prioritized moving all at-risk people to safe shelter as quickly as possible.

    To date, the French Interior Ministry reports roughly 141,000 people across the Gironde and Landes departments have been forced to leave their homes, with many coastal tourist residents fleeing by boat to escape the fast-moving flames. Dozens of French firefighters have been injured while battling the blazes, though no fatalities have been recorded across either France or Spain. For locals, the scale of the disaster is unprecedented: “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident of the French town of Arès.

    Across the border in central Spain, roughly 60,000 people living west of Madrid have similarly been displaced by raging wildfires that burned out of control Friday. Spanish firefighters have acknowledged the blazes move too quickly and violently to be confronted directly, leaving crews focused on evacuation and containment rather than aggressive frontline attacks. On Saturday, regional officials reported a slight reprieve: cooler temperatures and calmer winds overnight reduced fire intensity, creating a small window to reinforce containment lines.

    The European Union has mobilized a cross-national response to the emergency, with water-dumping firefighting aircraft already deployed from the Netherlands and Portugal to assist Spanish crews. Four additional aircraft — two from Italy and two from Greece — were expected to arrive in Spain Saturday to boost response efforts.

    French officials are also ramping up their response, announcing substantial national reinforcements that include additional firefighters, military personnel, medical workers, and wildfire experts to expand the team tackling the blaze. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described the France fire as “a large, self-sustaining fire that is extremely difficult to bring under control,” a assessment echoed by frontline crews and residents alike. As plumes of dark smoke have darkened skies across both regions and panicked residents flee by car, with authorities going door-to-door to clear at-risk neighborhoods, the disaster underscores the growing threat extreme heat and wildfires pose to populated European areas amid accelerating climate change.

  • Southern China on alert for Typhoon Noul as Hong Kong cancels flights

    Southern China on alert for Typhoon Noul as Hong Kong cancels flights

    Over a weekend in mid-summer, Southern China and Hong Kong braced for severe weather impacts as Typhoon Noul barrelled toward the coast, triggering high-level weather alerts, mass transport disruptions and large-scale civilian evacuations across the region.

    According to Hong Kong’s Observatory, the storm had intensified steadily as it crossed the northeastern South China Sea on Saturday, recording maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour near its center while moving gradually closer to eastern Guangdong’s coastline. Forecasters have offered slightly differing timelines for the storm’s landfall: Hong Kong’s weather service projects Noul will come ashore near the Guangdong cities of Huizhou and Shanwei on Sunday morning, while China’s national weather center predicts landfall will occur sometime between late Saturday and early Sunday. All forecasts agree that the storm will bring a dangerous mix of powerful sustained winds and intense squally rainfall to large swathes of the region.

    Transport disruption has been widespread even before the storm makes landfall. Official data from Hong Kong International Airport confirmed that more than 150 flights scheduled for Saturday and Sunday have already been canceled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded amid travel disruptions. In Guangdong province, all domestic rail services scheduled for Sunday have been scrapped entirely, as local authorities work to clear transport corridors ahead of the storm. By late Friday, local media reports confirmed that more than 20,000 residents in high-risk coastal areas of Guangdong had already been evacuated to emergency shelters.

    In Hong Kong, partial collapse of large-scale scaffolding on a high-rise building was reported Saturday afternoon as pre-landfall wind speeds picked up. Local police confirmed that no injuries had been reported in the incident as of the latest update.

    Beyond Guangdong and Hong Kong, the storm is also bringing weather impacts across the region. China’s National Meteorological Center warned that sections of southeastern Guangdong and southern Fujian’s coastline will see extreme heavy rainfall through the weekend. Off Taiwan, the storm passed through waters south of the island on Saturday, bringing significant rainfall to parts of southern and eastern Taiwan before continuing westward away from the island.

    Typhoon Noul marks the third significant tropical cyclone to impact China within the first half of July. Earlier this month, Typhoon Bavi made landfall in eastern China on July 11, bringing destructive wind and rain that forced the evacuation of more than 2 million people across affected regions. Before that, Typhoon Maysak came ashore in southern China on July 3, marking an unusually active early start to the 2020s Pacific typhoon season for coastal China.

  • Brazil’s government says it is working with Peru to protect border Indigenous lands

    Brazil’s government says it is working with Peru to protect border Indigenous lands

    RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In a landmark step toward collaborative conservation of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples announced Friday that it has formalized a new bilateral agreement with Peru’s Ministry of Culture focused on strengthening joint protection of Indigenous territories, particularly those housing uncontacted communities along the two nations’ shared border.

    Negotiations for the memorandum of understanding first launched in 2024, and the full text of the agreement is scheduled to be officially published in Brazil’s government register in the coming weeks, per Brazilian officials. Once implemented, the pact will create a structured cross-border framework for sharing intelligence, aligning enforcement strategies, and coordinating conservation efforts to address shared threats to vulnerable Indigenous lands.

    The announcement arrives amid urgent calls for action from Ashaninka Indigenous leaders, who are currently meeting with federal authorities in Brazil’s capital Brasília to request immediate security intervention for their cross-border territory. Earlier this month, five heavily armed men carrying machine guns entered the Ashaninka lands, threatened local families, and targeted the community’s senior leadership. Spanning the remote western Amazon along the Brazil-Peru divide, the Ashaninka territory has increasingly become a target for transnational criminal groups seeking access to unpatrolled land for illegal activity.

    The growing encroachment is directly tied to the expansion of a key drug trafficking corridor known as the Solimões River route, experts confirm. Criminal gangs and drug traffickers have increasingly carved out smuggling routes through the region, leveraging the dense, remote Amazon rainforest to move illicit goods. While Indigenous stewardship of these lands is widely recognized as one of the most effective barriers to Amazon deforestation – a critical front for regulating global climate systems – that same dense, remote tree cover that Indigenous communities protect also makes the territory ideal hiding spots for criminal networks.

    In response to the recent incursion, Brazilian federal police have opened a formal investigation into the attack, and launched a joint enforcement operation with state authorities in the region earlier this week. The operation’s official mandate is to prevent and crack down on cross-border incursions, organized criminal activity, drug trafficking, environmental harm, and other illegal activities that cross the two nations’ boundary.

    The Brazilian Army has also bolstered its presence in the border region, deploying approximately 30 additional troops to step up patrols. Preliminary intelligence gathered from Indigenous leaders and government agencies indicates the armed attackers were Peruvian citizens who crossed into the Brazilian side of the Ashaninka territory to carry out the incursion. This reinforcement, however, has drawn criticism from Indigenous advocacy groups, who have long argued that temporary troop deployments do little to address the permanent, ongoing threat of criminal encroachment on their lands.

    As of Friday, Peru’s Ministry of Culture had not responded to requests for comment on the new agreement or the recent attack. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental reporting is supported by funding from multiple private foundations, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content. More information on the AP’s philanthropic partnership standards, a full list of supporters, and funded coverage areas is available at AP.org.

  • Firefighters struggle to contain Madrid wildfires, as more than 140,000 evacuated in France and Spain

    Firefighters struggle to contain Madrid wildfires, as more than 140,000 evacuated in France and Spain

    As southern Europe grapples with record-breaking heatwaves and prolonged drought, catastrophic wildfires have erupted across France and Spain, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes and overwhelming emergency response capabilities.

    In central Spain, three separate blazes west of Madrid merged into a single massive inferno that regional officials describe as the worst wildfire in the region’s recorded history. Spanish authorities have declared a national emergency after the blaze spun completely out of control, with at least 30,000 people evacuated and an additional 20,000 placed under mandatory lockdown. Madrid’s regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso characterized the event as a perfect storm of extreme heat, unrelenting gusty winds, and converging fire fronts that has created an unprecedented challenge for first responders.

    Carlos Novillo, Madrid’s regional emergency management chief, confirmed that the wildfire is currently beyond the containment capacity of firefighting teams. “It is not possible to attack the fire in that area, so defensive measures are being taken,” he told reporters, noting the blaze is advancing toward the municipalities of Robledo de Chavela and Fresnedillas de la Olivia, roughly 50 kilometers outside the capital. Spain’s Military Emergency Unit has been deployed to slow the fire’s progress, with priority placed on protecting populated areas near the historic town of El Escorial.

    Emergency crews are also racing to prevent a second large wildfire in nearby Ávila province, the 15,000-hectare Burgohondo blaze, from merging with the Madrid fire. “Authorities are doing everything we can” to stop the two fires from combining, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said. As of Friday, more than 15,000 total hectares of land have been burned across the Madrid and Ávila regions, with eight full municipalities fully evacuated and three additional towns locked down.

    Local officials report the fire’s spread has been alarmingly rapid: the mayor of El Tiemblo in Ávila said flames covered 20 kilometers of terrain in less than 30 minutes. For 86-year-old Ecologio Cabrera, who fled his village west of Madrid with hundreds of other evacuees seeking shelter in a Vilamanta sports hall, the disaster is unlike anything he has ever experienced. “If you don’t run from it and you try to face it, it devours you,” Cabrera told reporters. His family had attempted to protect their home with garden hoses before firefighters ordered a full evacuation.

    Spanish authorities have opened an investigation into the Burgohondo blaze, with one person arrested and a second person under investigation for alleged negligence related to heavy machinery use during a period of high fire risk. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is scheduled to visit the region’s emergency coordination center on Saturday to assess the response, after describing the situation as dramatic and urging residents to exercise extreme caution.

    Across the border in southwestern France, the situation is equally dire, with more than 110,000 people evacuated after wildfires tore through the Gironde and Landes regions. The Gironde blaze, labeled an “XXL fire” by local prefect Sophie Brocas, has burned more than 19,000 hectares of forest and destroyed roughly 80 homes. The entire Cap Ferret peninsula, a popular summer tourist destination, was fully evacuated, with hundreds of visitors and residents escaping by boat as flames swept through coastal communities. While the peninsula has a year-round population of less than 8,000, seasonal numbers can surge to 80,000 during peak summer travel.

    Fire officials note conditions are even more severe than the devastating 2022 wildfires that hit the same region, with prolonged drought turning vegetation into dry tinder that allows fires to spread through the night. “We have never seen a convective fire of this magnitude,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told broadcaster TF1, adding that roughly 50 firefighters have been injured in containment efforts. On Friday evening, the blaze shifted direction and began advancing east toward the major city of Bordeaux, prompting plans for additional evacuations. French President Emmanuel Macron has mobilized military forces to support the response and activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to request international reinforcements, which will include two Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

    Further south in the Landes region, a second blaze near Biscarrosse forced more than 23,000 people to evacuate from homes, campsites, a nursing home, and a youth summer camp. Landes prefect Gilles Clavreul said the fire could not be extinguished on Friday, with sustained winds of 50 kilometers per hour and temperatures hovering near 37 degrees Celsius creating extreme fire conditions. Local leaders say the prolonged stretch of extreme, dry heat is unprecedented. “We have faced extreme weather conditions for the last month and a half” with no rain and above-average temperatures, said Philippe de Gonneville, mayor of the hard-hit town Lège-Cap Ferret. “It’s unheard of. Neither we nor the firefighters have seen anything like it.”

    The simultaneous outbreaks come as southern Europe grapples with a growing climate-fueled wildfire crisis. Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms Europe is warming at more than twice the global average, creating hotter, drier conditions that leave vegetation parched and primed for ignition. Most wildfires require a spark, often from human activity or lightning, but extreme heat, low moisture, and strong winds allow fires to spread rapidly and become nearly impossible to contain. This year alone, wildfires have burned more land across Europe than the annual average recorded over the past two decades, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. The European Environment Agency has warned that climate change has significantly increased forest fire risk across the continent, with the most severe danger concentrated in southern Europe. The European Union has already deployed additional aircraft and helicopters to support cross-border firefighting efforts in both Spain and France as authorities work to bring the blazes under control.

  • Tens of thousands in France flee burning holiday haven, by road and sea

    Tens of thousands in France flee burning holiday haven, by road and sea

    One of France’s most beloved summer retreats, long a quiet favorite of A-list celebrities and wealthy families, has been reduced to a smoky disaster zone, forcing a massive coordinated evacuation of more than 35,000 residents and tourists as an out-of-control wildfire sweeps across the Cap Ferret peninsula.

    Known for its windswept Atlantic sand dunes, casual oyster shacks and understated luxury that draws stars like Marion Cotillard and Jean Dujardin away from the glitzy bustle of the French Riviera, Cap Ferret is now a near-empty landscape. Deserted streets, shuttered storefronts and locked vacation homes mark the normally bustling peak summer tourist season, a transformation that long-term residents say is surreal.

    The blaze ignited on Wednesday in the nearby village of Saumos, just kilometers from the world-famous Medoc wine region, before spreading rapidly through the dense pine forests that cover the Atlantic coast. By Thursday, it had jumped to the Cap Ferret peninsula, prompting regional authorities to order a full evacuation of the peninsula’s 40,000 seasonal and permanent residents.

    Jean Goncalves, a 54-year-old resident of 30 years, fled his home early Friday after watching his neighbor’s wooden home go up in flames. “It’s a disaster, it’s horrible,” he told reporters from AFP, with a cloth tied over his face to block the acrid smoke. At the peninsula’s ferry terminal, local resident Cecile Maumy compared the empty streets to the height of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. “There’s not a soul around. It feels like the Covid period. It’s unbelievable,” she said.

    While no fatalities have been reported as of Friday, the fire has already destroyed more than 50 residential structures and an entire seaside campsite. Regional prefect Sophie Brocas labeled the blaze an “XXL wildfire, unpredictable and voracious,” with locals describing the landscape as resembling a war zone.

    The mass evacuation unfolded via two routes: most evacuees left by private car along the peninsula’s only connecting road, while hundreds of others were transported out by civilian and government ferries. This sea evacuation plan, drafted after devastating 2022 wildfires in the same region, was activated for the first time this week. Local shopkeeper and elected official David Lafforgue noted that the evacuation itself proceeded calmly, despite the chaos of the situation. “Everything was handled smoothly. Suitcases were ready, and people remained calm,” he said.

    But Lafforgue warned of catastrophic long-term impacts for the local tourism-dependent economy. The peak summer tourist season runs from mid-July to mid-August, the most profitable month of the year for local businesses. “Economically, it’s catastrophic. We go from everything to nothing,” he said. “We don’t know whether our seasonal workers will come back or whether our customers will return.”

    Many evacuees have been relocated to the larger coastal town of Andernos, where authorities are now preparing for a potential full evacuation of that town as well, as the fire continues to advance. Andernos deputy mayor Jean-Francois Garric explained that the town is already adjusting to the shifting danger. “We are welcoming people from the peninsula who have been evacuated to our reception centres, and now we have been instructed to evacuate those centres as well,” he said.

    Ninety-year-old Maria Lalanne, a lifelong Cap Ferret resident with no immediate family who fled to Andernos, spoke of her disorientation after being forced to leave her home quickly. She accidentally left her hearing aids and glasses behind amid the rush to evacuate. “I have heart disease, blood pressure issues, eye problems. I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know what has happened to my house,” she said.

    For visiting tourist Julie Boisvert, who was staying in the nearby village of Le Porge, the evacuation came with only minutes of warning. Gendarmes went door-to-door ordering residents to leave, giving her family just two minutes to depart with their two young children, ages two and five. “We had already packed suitcases just in case, but they gave us only two minutes and carefully checked that nobody was still inside the house,” she said, adding that she had already begun to feel surrounded by advancing flames.

    The Cap Ferret fire is not the only major blaze raging in southwestern France this week. Firefighters are also battling a second large wildfire near the town of Biscarrosse, southwest of Bordeaux, which broke out on Thursday and has already forced the evacuation of 18,000 people. Landes prefect Gilles Clavreul noted that the scale of this year’s fire season is unprecedented for the region. “We have never experienced anything like this,” he said.

    This year’s wave of intense wildfires follows three record-breaking heatwaves that have hit France since May, part of a global pattern of more frequent and more severe extreme weather events directly tied to human-caused climate change. The heat has already caused thousands of excess deaths across the country, dried up major rivers, and created ideal dry conditions for wildfire ignition and spread.

  • Giraffes given a new home in Uganda to escape oil drilling in the country’s largest park

    Giraffes given a new home in Uganda to escape oil drilling in the country’s largest park

    On a crisp, cold morning at Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest protected wilderness, a team of park rangers gathered to begin a high-stakes conservation mission: relocating a dozen of the country’s critically endangered Nubian giraffes to a safer habitat 65 miles away. As the rangers traded lighthearted jokes and sang to lift their spirits ahead of the complex translocation operation, the weight of the task ahead hung over the group—this project is widely viewed as a critical safeguard for a species increasingly squeezed by human industrial activity.

    Starting on Tuesday, conservation teams began moving 12 Nubian giraffes, Earth’s tallest terrestrial mammal, from Murchison Falls National Park to the rejuvenated Ajai Wildlife Reserve, a journey of 106 kilometers. The multi-day operation is designed to establish a separate, self-sustaining population of the vulnerable species, boost regional biodiversity, and unlock new ecotourism opportunities for local communities.

    The urgent need for this translocation stems from a growing threat to Murchison Falls’ ecosystem: the Ugandan government’s push to develop the region’s extensive oil reserves. An estimated 40 percent of Uganda’s total known oil deposits lie within and around the boundaries of Murchison Falls National Park, and large-scale drilling operations have expanded rapidly in recent months, despite years of fierce opposition from global and local environmental advocates. Heavy industrial machinery now traverses protected wilderness areas as the country moves toward its goal of producing first commercial oil from the region. By June 2023, French energy giant TotalEnergies had officially launched drilling operations in the Tilenga project area, which sits entirely within Murchison Falls National Park.

    Patrick Atimnedi, assistant commissioner for veterinary services at the Uganda Wildlife Authority, who led Tuesday’s translocation work, explained that establishing a satellite population of giraffes in a separate protected area will mitigate the risk of population collapse if oil drilling causes irreversible damage to the species’ current habitat. Beyond oil and gas development, Atimnedi noted that multiple interconnected pressures have been steadily shrinking the available habitat for Nubian giraffes in Uganda, including unregulated tourism expansion, climate change-driven ecological shifts, the spread of woody brush into savanna landscapes, and invasive plant species.

    Nubian giraffes can reach heights of up to 6 meters and weigh as much as 2,000 kilograms, making them particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and loss. “This is shrinking the habitat of wildlife here, but especially giraffes,” Atimnedi said. “So having a seed population somewhere about 100 kilometers away from here within the same conservation area, the same zone, is the right conservation decision to make.”

    After a final safety and strategy briefing from Atimnedi, the operation got underway, with conservation staff guiding three giraffes into specialized waiting trucks. Tree branches were secured inside the vehicles to give the animals access to food during the journey, helping keep them calm throughout the transport. At the Ajai Wildlife Reserve, a team of 12 rangers was already on standby to receive the newly arrived giraffes. Once offloaded, the animals wasted no time exploring their new 166-square-kilometer home.

    Ajai Wildlife Reserve has a complicated conservation history: once home to a thriving, diverse array of African wildlife, the reserve’s entire animal population was wiped out in the early 1980s amid widespread poaching and prolonged political insecurity across northern Uganda. Today, the reserve is the site of an ambitious long-term ecological restoration project, and the Nubian giraffe translocation is the latest milestone in that effort. Beyond giraffes, conservationists have already successfully reintroduced southern white rhinos, Cape buffalo, plains zebras, and hundreds of Uganda kobs to the restored landscape.

    Wilson Katamigwa, senior warden at Ajai Wildlife Reserve, reported that the reintroduced species already in the reserve are thriving: “The animals are now doing very well and are multiplying. Many are now pregnant. They are spreading all over the reserve, both inside the electric fence and outside the electric fence.”

    Conservation officials are optimistic that the 86-year-old reserve, first established in 1937, will provide a stable long-term home for the new giraffe population, helping grow Uganda’s overall Nubian giraffe numbers despite mounting threats from human activity and climate change. To protect the new population, part of the reserve has been enclosed with predator-proof fencing, and the number of anti-poaching rangers has been increased substantially. Local communities, which receive a cut of all tourism revenues generated by the reserve, have also participated in extensive conservation education programs to build buy-in for the project.

    “They are ready to conserve with us, and we are having a good working relationship with the district leadership,” Katamigwa said. Once the full translocation of 12 giraffes is complete, community members will be invited to the reserve to see the giraffes, which have been absent from the region for more than 40 years. “The big dream is that we want to see the economy of this place growing bigger and bigger and for the Madi Okollo district to be included in the money economy using tourism,” Katamigwa added.

    As the first giraffes stepped off the transport trucks onto the reserve’s grasslands, local resident Moses Ayoti could not contain his excitement at the return of the species to the region, and at the environmental and economic benefits the giraffes will bring to his community. “The community is aware, the vigilance is high, and I am sure they are going to take care of the animals because they belong to the local community, too,” Ayoti said.