More than 325,000 fire refugees in France and Spain, flames 15 km from the Bordeaux metropolitan area

French and Spanish firefighters on Sunday battled massive fires that have forced more than 325,000 people to flee, particularly near Bordeaux in southwestern France, where the flames are 15 km from the city and the situation could worsen due to the heat, but also in several Spanish regions.

The area around the very touristy Arcachon basin has notably faced a formidable "pyrocumulonimbus" called a "firestorm", Lieutenant-Colonel Éric Brocardi told AFP.

Faced with this phenomenon, as well as the scale of the flames, the firefighters are playing defense, according to the image of this spokesperson for the National Federation of Firefighters: "it's a war strategy, we keep getting bombarded and we have to get everyone to safety".

- The situation remains "very unfavorable" -

The high temperatures forecast could "exacerbate the situation," fears Sophie Brocas, the prefect (state representative) of Gironde (southwest France). Météo-France predicts a likely heatwave in the southwest starting Tuesday, with highs reaching 40°C and slightly less strong but drier winds.

Some "115,000 hectares have been affected" by fires so far this year in France, "far more than we have seen in the past", Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Sunday on a French public channel, mentioning "30 to 40 fires being fought simultaneously" on a daily basis.

He reiterated that on the fire front in Gironde, Landes (southwest) and Var (southeast) in particular, the situation remained "very unfavorable".

The giant blaze has engulfed 240 homes, and some 220,000 people have been evacuated since Wednesday.

Many volunteers are assisting these fire refugees, like Yannick Poulet. "We must help all those we can to save the inhabitants, save our woods, our villages and our towns. It's a small help in this ocean of needs," describes this 59-year-old local government employee.

"Dozens, probably hundreds of people have come forward to volunteer," says Cyril Charpentier Réglat, an elected official from the town of Lacanau. "Even that lady over there, you can see her, she lost her house in Le Porge and she came to lend a hand."

On this French Atlantic coast, in the Gironde department, the flames have so far covered 42,000 hectares (four times the area of Paris), "that is 10,000 more than yesterday", according to Prefect Brocas.

They are now "15 kilometers" from the Bordeaux metropolitan area (850,000 inhabitants), but an evacuation of the city is "not on the agenda", reaffirmed its mayor Thomas Cazenave.

An orange smoke darkens the sky over Bordeaux and the smell of burning reaches the streets.

- "Impossible" -

In Le Porge, between the chic seaside resort of Cap Ferret and Bordeaux, AFP aerial images bear witness to the violence of the fire: rows of ravaged houses, charred cars and completely destroyed buildings.

Nearby, the network of defense industries and scientific sites around Bordeaux-Mérignac airport, including a gunpowder factory, missile plant and research centers, is now under high surveillance, exposed to the massive fire.

This region, renowned worldwide for its vineyards, is also the one in France with the most campsites; 45 establishments have been evacuated, representing approximately 40,000 campers.

The fire is also causing major disruption to transport, with a 60-kilometer stretch of highway closed and rail traffic interrupted.

In the neighboring department of Landes, where the fire is "better contained but not fixed", there have already been 30,000 evacuations.

Firefighters are approaching an "operational impossibility," explains Lieutenant-Colonel Éric Brocardi.

Forests catch fire all the more easily because European vegetation and soils have been very dry for months, a phenomenon accentuated by the exceptional heat waves that swept across the continent in June and July and caused more water to evaporate.

- "Difficult times" in Spain -

Terrible fires are also raging in Spain, where Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expecting "difficult hours" ahead. He will visit the disaster-stricken area of Castellón, near Valencia, on Monday.

He also renewed his call for a national "pact" against the effects of climate change.

But Juan Manuel Moreno, 71, from the village of Aldea del Fresno in the Madrid region, shows AFP photos on his phone of the floods that submerged his yard in 2023 and of Storm Filomena that covered his house with snow in 2021.

Today, at the other end of the spectrum of natural disasters, forest fires have forced him to evacuate his village and take refuge in a gymnasium in the nearby town of Villamanta.

"We are accumulating a number of problems here. But these things can be avoided," he believes. "Most of Spain is wooded, don't tell me it's prone to fires: it's because nothing is cleared."

While the Avila fire near Madrid is the largest in the country's recent history (25,000 hectares ravaged, 60,000 people evacuated), the fire claimed its first victim on Saturday near Valencia in eastern Spain, in another fire.

There, in La Vall d'Uixó, where helicopters equipped with suspended buckets are spraying the flames, "we had a good scare," says Azucena Paguada, one of the evacuees.

"We had to leave Villavieja in a hurry (...), the Guardia Civil came to our house and made us leave, telling us we were in danger." "It was a terrible scare," confided this survivor.

Resting in the Villamanta gymnasium, 70-year-old Margarita shows the stains on her T-shirt, which she has been wearing for four days. "We left with the only clothes we had on our backs. We thought we would return home the next day," explains her 45-year-old daughter, Helena.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain were at their bedside on Sunday, as were the other evacuees from Aldea del Fresno. "The queen came to say hello, and I was wearing this dirty thing...", sighs Margarita.