A devastating wave of wildfires fanned by record-breaking high temperatures is sweeping across Western and Southern Europe, triggering mass evacuations, emergency declarations, and urgent requests for cross-continental assistance as blazes consume thousands of hectares of land and claim multiple lives. As of Friday, smoke from out-of-control blazes burning just 60 miles from the Spanish capital had drifted into Madrid, while thousands of tourists and local residents were evacuated by boat from a popular French Atlantic vacation peninsula, marking one of the most severe wildfire crises the region has faced in years.