250,000 flee unprecedented wildfires across France and Spain

Across the sun-scorched landscapes of southwestern France and Spain, a quarter-million people have left their homes behind as wildfires of historic scale advance through forests and towns, driven by heat and wind that outpace every human effort to stop them. One life has already been lost, and the smoke now reaching the streets of Bordeaux carries with it a warning that no single nation can answer alone. What is unfolding is not merely a seasonal disaster but a signal — that the continent's relationship with summer itself is changing, and that the systems built to protect people are being test