Across southwestern France and Spain, more than a quarter million people have been driven from their homes by wildfires of a scale and speed that veteran firefighters describe as without precedent. Fueled by successive heat waves that have arrived earlier and burned hotter than historical memory allows, the fires speak to something larger than any single emergency — a landscape being fundamentally rewritten by a changing climate. Nations across Europe are pooling aircraft, personnel, and resources in a shared recognition that what was once exceptional is becoming ordinary.
250,000+ flee as unprecedented wildfires sweep France and Spain
Over 250,000 people forcibly evacuated from homes; dozens of firefighters injured; people fled by boat and car as flames swept through towns.