Macron calls crisis meeting as wildfires threaten Bordeaux and heatwave looms - BBC

What the report says

BBC News reported that French President Emmanuel Macron planned a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday as major wildfires advanced in south-west France, with flames estimated at about 15km from Bordeaux. Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave said there were no plans to evacuate the city, whose population is about 850,000, while officials warned that a new heatwave could make firefighting more difficult.

According to the BBC, tens of thousands of people have already been moved from areas around Bordeaux. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described the situation as highly unfavourable and said the fire was shifting unpredictably toward the city. Forecasts cited in the report indicated temperatures in parts of France could reach 40C from Tuesday. The National Firefighters Federation of France said the main Gironde blaze had generated a pyrocumulonimbus, a fire-driven thunderstorm that can create its own wind and lightning, complicating direct suppression efforts.

The BBC said about 42,000 hectares had burned in south-west France, making it one of the country’s largest forest fires since World War Two, while roughly 98,000 hectares have been scorched nationwide since the start of the year. More than 220,000 people have been evacuated in the south-west.

The fires form part of a wider European emergency. In Spain, firefighters were responding to new and continuing blazes near Valencia, Ávila and areas west of Madrid. The BBC reported that around 77,000 hectares had burned in Spain and more than 90,000 people had been evacuated around Madrid and Ávila, as Spanish leaders warned of difficult conditions and renewed calls for action on the climate emergency.