Wildfires in France and Spain force 141,000 evacuations, threaten Bordeaux and Madrid, hit NASA antennas

France: fires near Bordeaux reach unprecedented scale

A huge wildfire in the Gironde department of southwestern France has burned more than 19,000 hectares (190,000 Greek stremmata), an area almost twice the size of Paris, and destroyed about 100 buildings since it started on Wednesday 22 July. The fire is approaching the metropolitan area of Bordeaux, leading to the preventive evacuation of seven municipalities, including Saint-Médard-en-Jalles (33,000 inhabitants), Léognan (11,400) and part of Mérignac (78,000). At least 141,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes since Wednesday evening, with 110,000 in Gironde and 31,000 in the neighbouring Landes department. The tourist peninsula of Cap Ferret was fully evacuated by road and sea, and around 3,500 evacuees are being sheltered at the Bordeaux exhibition centre.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked the armed forces to bring the A400M military transport aircraft into service immediately for firefighting operations. The plane is equipped to drop 20 tonnes of retardant, the equivalent of two Dash aircraft, and its operational use had been scheduled for the end of July but was brought forward because of the severity of the situation.

We have never seen a convective fire of such intensity, a fire that feeds itself.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described the fire as completely unprecedented and said 32 fires were active across France on Friday morning. President Emmanuel Macron called on the military to provide "the maximum possible assistance" to civil protection forces, noting that the fire fronts in the southwest had reached "unprecedented dimensions".

Spain: state of emergency as Madrid fires merge

In Spain, three active fires in the Madrid region merged into a single front on Friday afternoon, complicating firefighting efforts. The Spanish interior ministry said the fires had destroyed 250,000 stremmata (approximately 25,000 hectares) – 100,000 in the Community of Madrid and between 130,000 and 150,000 in the province of Ávila. More than 8,000 residents were evacuated in the Ávila area and another 5,000 were told not to leave their homes, while across Madrid and Castile and León a total of 63,000 people were affected and 50,000 displaced.

This is the worst fire in the history of our region. It is the perfect storm, with extremely high temperatures and relentless winds that do not let up.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited a reception centre in one of the affected zones and said the priority was saving lives. Spain declared a national state of emergency for the first time because of a wildfire, unlocking federal funding to tackle the crisis.

NASA deep-space complex hit by flames

Flames swept through the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) near the Spanish capital, a key station of NASA's Deep Space Network that maintains contact with missions exploring deep space. A NASA spokesperson confirmed that the fire "passed through" the complex and that the facility had been evacuated in time. Any damage will be assessed once safety conditions allow. The site is one of three such complexes worldwide, alongside those in California and Canberra, Australia, positioned so that at least one antenna can always communicate with spacecraft as Earth rotates.

Our priority, our thought, our goal is about lives, to save lives.

Both countries have repeatedly been hit by heatwaves and destructive fires in recent years, phenomena scientists link to climate change, and have requested assistance from the European Union as emergency services reach their limits.