More than 200,000 people flee or lock down as wildfires sweep France and Spain

More than 200,000 people have fled or been ordered to lock down as huge wildfires swept Spain and France on Friday, prompting Madrid to declare a national emergency and the French authorities to order the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots.

Authorities in south-west France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village” in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) of forest.

Spain’s government declared its first national emergency for a wildfire as two large blazes merged into one outside Madrid and a third was on the verge of joining them, amid searing heat and tinder-dry conditions across much of southern Europe.

Both countries sought EU help. “This is the worst wildfire in our region’s history,” said Madrid’s regional leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, describing “an unprecedented situation: a perfect storm of extremely high temperatures and relentless winds”.

More than 110,000 people had been evacuated in two days to escape the Cap Ferret fire, the Gironde prefecture said, including thousands of holidaymakers in campsites and rental homes.

Boats ferried hundreds off piers on the peninsula on Friday as the blaze threatened to cut off the only access road.

Scientists say climate breakdown is triggering more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.

About 800 firefighters and four water-bombing planes were battling the Gironde blaze north of Arcachon Bay, but the fire, which began on Wednesday near the village of Saumos 25 miles (40km) west of Bordeaux, was not yet stabilised.