An aerial photograph shows smoke emanating from the wildfire north of the Arcachon basin (right), with a view of a beach and the Atlantic Ocean (left) near Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France. (AFP pic)
PARIS: Here are the main developments related to the wildfires raging in western Europe on Saturday:
‘Save lives’: Sanchez
“Our priority, our thinking, our aim is for your lives, to save your lives and protect inhabited areas,” Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters while visiting a village in the fire zone.
“We are going to have some complex hours ahead because although the temperatures have gone down, we do not know exactly how the wind will develop, how strong it will be.”
25,000 hectares burned
Wildfires raging west of Madrid have burned up to 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres), more than twice the surface area of the city of Paris, the Spanish interior ministry said.
Flames have ravaged nearly 10,000 hectares in the Madrid region and “between 13,000 and 15,000” in the neighbouring province of Avila, the ministry said in a message sent to journalists.
35,000 evacuated in Spain
More than 30,000 people have been evacuated and 20,000 confined to their homes in the Madrid region as a result of the fires, the Spanish interior ministry said on Saturday morning.
The ministry also said there had been 5,150 people evacuated and 8,635 confined in Avila.
Paris sends 100 firefighters
Around 100 Paris firefighters were being deployed to southwest France to help battle raging wildfires, the head of the Paris Fire Brigade told AFP.
Arnaud de Cacqueray, commander of the Paris Fire Brigade, said the firefighters would primarily be involved in wildfire suppression operations.
A400M plane deployed
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has ordered the armed forces to deploy an A400M military transport aircraft as early as Saturday to help combat fires raging in the southwest.
The aircraft is to be equipped with a dispensing kit that can release 20 tonnes of fire retardant, equivalent to the capacity of two Dash firefighting aircraft.
Spain fire ‘decreased’
The government delegation in Madrid said on X early Saturday that overnight conditions had “greatly aided the fight against the wildfires, which advanced little and decreased in intensity”.
‘Real opportunity’
With temperatures dipping around Madrid, “there is a real opportunity now to tackle this fire with some guarantee of success,” the central government’s delegate in the Spanish capital, Francisco Martin, told reporters late Friday.
But he warned that Saturday would be “difficult” as “the wind is expected to rise in the morning, with rather erratic gusts”.
Fire moves towards Bordeaux
French authorities ordered the evacuation of towns near the southwestern city of Bordeaux “as a precaution”, as wildfires moved towards the area.
The traffic information website Bison Fute urged drivers to avoid roads in the Gironde department, where Bordeaux is located, to free up access for emergency services.
Major Nasa site hit
The massive wildfires forced Nasa to evacuate one of its three global deep space communications facilities in Spain on Friday, impacting the agency’s ability to communicate with space probes.
France sends troops
Around 500 additional soldiers will be sent to “support the firefighters” battling blazes in southwest France, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said after a crisis meeting with his key ministers.
France evacuations top 140,000
More than 140,000 people have been evacuated from areas threatened by wildfires in France’s southwest, France’s interior ministry said.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told the TF1 broadcaster that authorities would “do everything to protect” Bordeaux, the nearest city to the fire.
Madrid fires ‘at peak’
A wildfire raging near Madrid that has forced thousands of evacuations is “at its peak” and impossible to control, said Carlos Novillo, Madrid’s regional government emergency management chief.
Spain fires merging
A massive fire near Madrid is close to merging with another blaze in neighbouring Castilla y Leon, government official Nicanor Sen Velez has said.
“It is very bad news,” he told journalists.
Arrest over Spanish fire
Spanish police said they had arrested a man for setting off a fire in Castilla y Leon region by using farm machinery in breach of a ban in the tinderbox conditions.
Another person was under investigation for the same incident, the police said.
