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First an epic heatwave and now rampant wildfires have made for one miserable summer for Western Europe, with blazes in popular tourist destinations in France and Spain resulting in the evacuation of some 60,000 people.
Several regions in southern and central Greece, including the wider Athens area, are also now on the highest alert level for wildfire danger.
In the French peninsula of Cap Ferret residents and tourists fled the flames while in Spain smoke drifted into the country’s capital of Madrid as the fires erupted in a number of locations throughout Europe.
By Friday, authorities ordered the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists from the popular vacation destination in southwestern France as the result of a fire that has ravaged more than 25,000 acres, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told AFP, while calling the inferno “the largest fire of the season.”
“As I speak, gradually, 40,000 people have either been evacuated or are currently being evacuated,” he said. “A total of 80 homes have burnt, around 50 of which have been completely destroyed.”
Some 400 people were evacuated by boat from the peninsula located along France’s Atlantic coast.
Another 23,000 people have been evacuated south of Bordeaux in the coastal Landes region, NBC reported.
The minister said as of Friday there have been no casualties as hundreds of firefighters have spent this week battle the flames west of Bordeaux and its famous wine region.
“The situation remains under very high tension in the face of the fires ravaging the country,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X.
In Spain, two separate fires had yet to be controlled some 60 miles from Madrid as residents in the capital woke up to the unmistakable smell of the fires carried by smoke drifting into their communities.
A state of emergency was declared in the Madrid region, forcing the evacuation of more than 10,000 people this week, NBC reported.
“We are living through a dramatic situation, not only in various Spanish provinces but also in regions of neighboring countries, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X.
Spain this year has already suffered 22 major forest fires, defined as a fire that burns over 1,235 acres, the Associated Press reported.
“Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday,” the Madrid regional government said in a statement.
June 2026 was the hottest June recorded for western Europe, reportedly driven by the highest sea surface temperatures on record for the month, according to meteorologists. Temperatures are expected to top 102 in parts of Spain on Friday.
France recorded more than 5,700 excess deaths during its June heatwave, according to authorities, while some estimates put the heat death toll at 10,000 for all of Europe.
Holidaymakers from Lege-Cap-Ferret disembark from a boat upon their arrival in Arcachon during an evacuation operation of the entire Cap-Ferret peninsula, in southwestern France, on July 24, 2026 whilst a wildfire is spreading across the area. T(ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
Europe doesn’t deal with heat the same way the United States does. Nearly 90% of US homes have air conditioning, while in Europe it’s reportedly around 20%.
Italy has not been spared the heat or the flames.
“In Italy, thousands of emergency workers battled scores of fires in Sicily and in the Calabria region, where a local official said arsonists had started fires by tying rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread the flames,” CBS reported.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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