French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula on July 24, 2026, as a fast-moving wildfire forced 40,000 people to flee. Simultaneously, Spain declared a national emergency in the Madrid region after surging heatwaves fueled massive blazes, forcing over 10,000 residents to evacuate.
Luggage-clad residents and tourists fled the French peninsula of Cap Ferret by boat as smoke choked parts of western Europe on Friday, July 24, 2026. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told AFP that 40,000 people had been evacuated or were in the process of leaving due to a massive blaze. The fire has ravaged more than 25,000 acres, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to invoke the European Union civil protection mechanism.
Total Evacuation of Cap Ferret Peninsula Amid Surging Gironde Wildfires
The evacuation of the popular tourist destination west of Bordeaux was ordered by Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas on Friday morning. Evacuation boats operated from three piers on the peninsula, while thousands of holidaymakers used the main road toward Bordeaux to escape the advancing flames.
Local officials detailed the terrifying speed of the firefront. Marc Vermeulen, director of Gironde’s Fire and Rescue Service, explained that the fire grew by up to 1,000 hectares every hour overnight. Because the blaze was so intense, burning embers were thrown straight into the center of towns and caused fires to spread rapidly from house to house.
“When I say explosion, it means that for several hours, we had propagation speeds on the order of 800 to 1,000 hectares burned per hour, in the context of a suburban area.”
Marc Vermeulen, Fire and rescue chief
Further down the Atlantic coast near Biscarrosse, another major fire forced 23,000 people to evacuate. Local authorities confirmed that 53 homes and one campsite had burned in the Cap Ferret blaze alone, though firefighters managed to protect roughly 2,000 other houses.
Spain Declares National Emergency as Madrid Region Fires Merge
Across the border, Spain took action by declaring a national emergency over forest fires in the Madrid region.
Three separate blazes burning west of Madrid merged into a single massive front. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid’s regional president, called the disaster the worst fire in the history of the region.
Spanish authorities reported that more than 19,000 people had been evacuated from a cluster of towns roughly 75 kilometers west of Madrid, including elderly care home residents.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Ávila, a severe wildfire originating in Burgohondo advanced at a terrifying pace, forcing the preventive evacuation of 1,500 residents.
“In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,”
Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo
International Assistance and Shifting Weather Conditions Ahead
With national resources stretched, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that France secured crucial European reinforcements through the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
Emergency crews in both Spain and France are looking toward a potential break in the weather. Regional officials in Madrid stated that meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday.