French authorities have ordered 4000 more evacuations from tourist sites along its Atlantic coast as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.
Fresh flames erupted near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said.
A fleet of 23 planes and helicopters - up from 18 - dropped water and fire retardant as crews fought to keep the renewed flames from spreading.
“The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.
She said about 60,000 residents who were evacuated as a precaution from Le Haillan and parts of Mérignac and Eysines outside Bordeaux’s ring road could return.
Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by huge wildfires.
Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with several blazes still burning out of control, including the largest in its recorded history.
The Gironde fire has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said it is “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation operation carried out in France outside war.
The precautionary evacuation order covered campsites, holiday villages, tourist residences and leisure parks around the resort of Lacanau, Gironde regional authorities said.
“We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told the BFMTV broadcast network. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.”
France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning, forecasting inland temperatures of 33C to 35C on Wednesday.
More than 1160 sq km have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.
Spanish firefighters made progress on Tuesday, and authorities began lifting evacuation orders for at least 20,000 of the 79,000 people forced to flee over the weekend.
Francisco Martín, the central government’s representative in the Madrid region, said orders would be lifted in 10 towns, allowing about 20,000 evacuees to return home and ending stay-at-home orders for another 14,000.
Residents of some villages in Ávila were also being allowed home, though authorities did not specify how many.
Another 6000 people could return after a smaller fire near Toledo was brought under control, while several thousand more went home in Castellón.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by military emergency brigades and water-dropping aircraft continued battling several major wildfires.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said non-stop work through the night left him “reasonably positive,” though officials warned crews had only a brief window before extreme heat returned.
Spain’s national weather service said the country was bracing for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some areas.
The government has declared a national emergency over the fires.
At least 13 people have died in wildfires in Spain this year, making 2026 one of the country’s deadliest fire seasons in decades.
