France evacuates 20,000 as wildfires ravage southwest; deaths reported across Europe

The evacuation began in the dark. Around midnight on Wednesday, roughly 10,000 tourists sleeping in campsites along the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula woke to orders to leave. By Thursday morning, the numbers had swelled: 12,000 people had been moved out overnight, with another 8,800 in the process of being relocated as wildfires consumed the landscape around Arcachon Bay in France's Gironde region. The flames had already blackened 3,400 hectares—more than 8,400 acres—of forest and scrubland, and about 700 firefighters were working to contain a fire that officials warned would only grow more dangerous as the day wore on.

Yassmina de Freitas, a 19-year-old who lives in the coastal town of Le Porge, first noticed something wrong at lunchtime. The smell of burning drifted across her neighborhood. By afternoon, ash and charred tree bark were falling from the sky like snow. The smoke thickened. The daylight dimmed to an unnatural darkness. Around 8 p.m., police arrived and told her family to leave immediately. They were driven to a gymnasium in a neighboring town. In the rush, two of their cats and four chickens could not be found. De Freitas did not sleep that night. Every hour she woke to check the fire's progress online, watching the hectare count climb steadily upward.

Marc Vermeulen, the fire service chief for Gironde, spoke to the scale of what his crews faced. The work had been relentless through the night, he said, but conditions were about to worsen. Temperatures were rising. Wind was strengthening. The fire would peak around 8 p.m., and then the real problem would begin: the wind would become erratic and unpredictable, making the flames nearly impossible to anticipate or contain. "We're currently tackling a fire that is going to be difficult to predict," Vermeulen warned, "and that's why we cannot relax our guard."

The human cost was already visible. Two firefighters had died earlier in the week while battling a separate blaze near Bordeaux airport. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez paid tribute to them, expressing his "infinite gratitude" and "unwavering support" to their families. The losses extended beyond France. In Sicily, a firefighter named Alessandro Marchi died while fighting wildfires that had erupted across the island—more than 350 fires in total, including 10 major ones that forced evacuations. Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Marchi had died "in service to the community."

Spain was fighting its own battle. West of Madrid, authorities ordered 3,500 residents of Aldea del Fresno to evacuate as a wildfire burned out of control nearby. A day earlier, the village of Almorox, south of the capital, had received similar orders. Some residents were beginning to return, but officials cautioned that the fires remained uncontained. About 890 hectares had burned in that region alone. The country had already experienced more fires this year than in the entirety of 2025, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. The largest blaze, in the Guadalajara region north of Madrid, had consumed more than 35,000 hectares, leaving behind landscapes so scorched that they looked almost lunar. Temperatures in parts of Spain had reached at least 42 degrees Celsius.

These were not isolated incidents. They were symptoms of a broader crisis. A report released in April by the Copernicus Climate Change Service found that at least 95 percent of Europe had experienced above-average temperatures in 2025. Europe was the fastest-warming continent on Earth. Wildfire-burned area and fire emissions had both reached record levels the previous year. The heatwaves sweeping across the continent this summer were unusual and prolonged, officials said—a phrase that carried the weight of understatement.

Back in Claouey, on the shore of Arcachon Bay, the evacuation was proceeding what local officials called "calmly." The prefect, Sophie Brocas, reported no injuries. But the roads that normally carried nose-to-tail traffic down the peninsula were empty. Supermarkets sat unnervingly quiet. People who had come to the coast for summer holidays were now watching their vacation turn into an emergency. In the Var region to the southeast, evacuated residents were told they could return Thursday morning to assess damage to their homes, but authorities warned them not to linger. The afternoon would bring stronger winds. The fire could reignite. The danger was not over. It was only beginning to peak.