French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the wildfire situation in southwestern France was "very unfavorable” as 55,000 people were forced to evacuate overnight Sunday, bringing the total forced out of their homes to 220,000 in one region alone.
"Another difficult night on the wildfire front," Nunez said on X. "The situation remains very unfavorable," he said.
A total of 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss firefighting team, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to battle the blazes in the southwestern department of Gironde, he said.
Flames crept ever closer to the 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, as shifting, gusting winds and arid conditions complicated the massive effort to limit the fire's spread.
In southwest France, gusting winds fed the flames overnight Sunday, accelerating the spread of the monster blaze that has burned 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 heat waves this year, has grown inexorably, expanding by Sunday morning to an estimated 42,000 hectares (162 square miles), the Gironde prefecture said. That is seven times the area of Manhattan island and 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 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the city at its closest point.
The Gironde prefect ordered the partial closure of a major highway 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.
In neighboring Spain, authorities oversaw a new round of evacuations due to wildfires in the Valencia region. In total, uncontrolled blazes there and others west of Madrid this week have forced 116,000 people out of their homes.
A wildfire in a bushy ravine in Manises, a suburb of Valencia, that raged out of control for four hours killed one man on Saturday, the local government said, marking Spain’s first recorded death in the latest fires.
Earlier this month, 13 people were killed in a fire in southern Spain, the country’s deadliest blaze in recent memory.
