Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes and holiday accommodation to seek emergency shelter as wildfires sweep across Spain and France.

The blazes have destroyed houses and displaced people on a massive scale, with more than 300,000 people fleeing accommodation, as the blazes triggered one of the largest peacetime civilian evacuation operations ever carried out in France.

One person has ​died in ​a wildfire after he was ‌found in a car near the Spanish city of Valencia, the ​country’s ⁠interior ⁠ministry said.
At the same time, French authorities said 68 firefighters had been injured while tackling the wildfire in the southwest region, with two firefighters passing away near Bordeaux this week.

France initially hustled 197,000 people from areas around popular vacation spot Bordeaux, one of its biggest-ever peacetime evacuations, with 3,000 later allowed to return.

In Spain, where 60,000 people were evacuated from villages west of Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the priority was ‘to save lives’. At least eight municipalities near Toledo were later ordered to evacuate, though it was unclear how many people that involved.

Nuala Kelly, a 75-year-old Irish tourist, said: ‘Never, never, never, never, never, and I’ve travelled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations,’ she told AFP at Bordeaux’s vast exhibition centre now housing thousands of people.

France has mobilised its military to help with the response and extra reinforcements from the army have been sent to help firefighters by clearing brush and creating fire breaks.

President Emmanuel Macron said France would ‘rebuild’ and his government would ‘be there for as long as is needed’.

98,000 hectares have burned across France so far this year, and 130,000 hectares of land have been burned in Spain since the beginning of 2026, ahead of an annual average of 100,000 hectares for the country over the last decade.

Wildfires west of Madrid have burned up to 25,000 hectares, according to Spain’s interior ministry, with two of the three major wildfires there having merged and threatening to join another blaze, raising fears of a vast inferno just kilometres from the Spanish capital.

Meanwhile in Italy, more than 350 fires – including 10 major blazes – broke out on the island of Sicily, the head of the Sicilian Civil Protection said on Wednesday, prompting evacuations.

A quarter of a million people have been evacuated so far as wildfires rage across Europe after record heatwaves, from as far north as #Norway down through #France, #Spain & #Italy. This isn’t a drill. This is the new climate reality. Urgent mitigation & adaptation are required. pic.twitter.com/Rv3r3T0YYf

— Peter Dynes (@PGDynes) July 25, 2026