Arabic version: حرائق الغابات تفرض عمليات إجلاء واسعة في فرنسا وإسبانيا

According to The Guardian, more than 250,000 people have fled wildfires in France and Spain as authorities struggle to contain blazes driven by heatwaves and strong winds. About 70,000 people were evacuated from central Spain and 197,000 fled in France, including tens of thousands from Bordeaux, a wine-region city.

Spain declared a national emergency over the wildfires, the first time it has done so. In France, the interior minister said the evacuations were “probably” the country’s biggest peacetime evacuation. Fires in the Gironde region of south-western France were reported about 20 miles west of Bordeaux, while strong winds were forecast to push them closer to the city.

France deployed 1,500 soldiers and a military Airbus A400M Atlas cargo plane to support 18 other aircraft in the firefighting effort. The government also rushed 1.5m face masks for protection from smoke inhalation. Fire crews dug trenches and used retardants, while police went door to door in affected areas, including Bordeaux’s western suburbs, to order evacuations.

In Spain, high winds worsened the fires and two of three blazes merged on Friday. Madrid’s health minister advised residents to avoid outdoor activity because of poor air quality and to use a mask if outside in smoke or ash. On Saturday evening, officials said a man had died in a separate fire in Manises, Valencia, after being found in a car in a ravine.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said fires had consumed 130,000 hectares of forest this year, about a third above the country’s annual average. In France, more than 98,000 hectares had burned, described by the interior minister as a historic record. Several European countries sent aid and water-dumping aircraft, while the European Commission said additional rescue-fleet planes and helicopters were being deployed.