Thousands flee wildfires in southern Europe Andrew Zinin Chief Editor Luggage-clad residents and tourists fled a French peninsula by boat, and the smell of smoke drifted into parts of Madrid on Friday as wildfires swept through parts of Western Europe, triggering states of emergency and calls for EU help. In France, fires raging near Bordeaux, the country's prized wine region, forced hundreds of people to flee the Cap Ferret peninsula in the middle of the summer vacation season as the blaze devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan. In Spain, two separate blazes were raging out of control within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Madrid, with some residents of the Spanish capital waking up to the smell of smoke, according to residents.

"The gendarmes came and knocked on every door, the fire was about 500 meters (547 yards) away—we grabbed some things and left," Patrick Martineau, a 69-year-old resident of Le Porge, south of Bordeaux, said. Three firefighters have been killed as southern Europe endures more severe heat, with temperatures topping 40°C (104°F) in some areas. The total area of land burned so far this year in EU countries is the second largest on record, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

French authorities have ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast out of campsites and vacation homes as firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes, raced to control the blazes. More than 23,000 people have been evacuated in the region so far. France has invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to ask for help, President Emmanuel Macron said Friday, warning that the crisis remained "very intense." The EU said it would provide three water-bombing planes to France.

In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the situation "dramatic." "Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations on Friday," the Madrid regional government said in a post on X. France's southeast was also being hard hit, with dozens of fires flaring up and being fanned by the mistral wind around the historic village of Cotignac—officials said around 25 houses had been destroyed since Tuesday. In Italy, thousands of emergency workers battled scores of fires in Sicily and 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.

One firefighter died after falling ill while battling the flames in Sicily, the interior minister said. Two firefighters died Tuesday while tackling another blaze near Bordeaux airport. No chance Skies over Le Porge turned orange as smoke rose from charred and crackling pine trees, while helicopters made repeated runs over deserted neighborhoods.

Fires in 2022 damaged a massive area of the same forest, forcing around 50,000 people to flee. The blazes are breaking out faster because of climate change caused by the burning of oil, coal and gas.