Europe wildfires ease in France and Spain as Greece fires trigger evacuations

Leporge,UPDATED: Aug 1, 2026 20:48 IST

Europe's wildfire emergency eased across much of western Europe on Saturday, with major fires in France and Spain no longer advancing and Portugal's main blaze brought under control. But the crisis worsened in Greece, where gale-force winds drove flames through a seaside resort and forced fresh evacuations.

At the peak of the emergency, fires in France and Spain alone forced about a third of a million people to leave homes and holiday sites, emptied towns in the summer season and stretched firefighters, aircraft and emergency services. While the pressure has now eased in much of western Europe, authorities warned the wider emergency is not over and that the most dangerous front has shifted towards Greece.

In southwestern France, firefighters kept a vast wildfire within its perimeter, allowing about 198,000 people to return home after what may have been the country's largest peacetime evacuation. The Gironde fire has burned 420 square kilometres of pine forest west of Bordeaux, an area four times the size of Paris.

Firefighters said the blaze remained contained within that perimeter on Saturday, though it had not been declared "fixed", the point at which crews decide that a fire is no longer advancing. Active sectors and buried hot spots remained. Lt. Col. Eric Pitault told reporters: "Today, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained." Crews used tactical burns overnight to consume vegetation ahead of active sectors, but still faced about 240 kilometres of fire edges where heat can stay buried underground and flare up again.

Several communities remained largely deserted. Authorities kept much of the affluent, forested Cap Ferret peninsula evacuated because a nearby hot spot could flare again, cut its limited road access and trap people who had returned. The fire's impact also extended beyond people and property. Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of France's League for the Protection of Birds, told RMC radio that animals affected already numbered in the millions.

In the Var region, defensive lines around the Gros Bessillon fire held overnight and no additional ground burned, Var Prefect Simon Babre told French media. The second French fire, which raced across 10 square kilometres in six hours on Friday, had stopped expanding overnight after moving "faster than a horse at full gallop", according to the prefecture. But it remained active on Saturday, about 2,500 people were still unable to return home and 1,300 firefighters were deployed. Babre said the blaze's sudden return "defies understanding". Twenty French departments were under an orange heat warning on Saturday, mostly in the east and southeast, with temperatures of 35 to 39 degrees Celsius forecast around the Mediterranean and eight departments facing a high forest-fire risk.

Portugal's main wildfire was declared under control, while Spain's largest fires were no longer making sustained advances and most evacuation orders had been lifted. Even so, new fires broke out in Greece on Saturday as strong winds whipped up flames, carried embers across dry landscapes and prevented some aircraft from collecting water or flying close enough to make drops. The danger carried a grim resonance in Attica, where the 2018 wildfire in the seaside community of Mati killed 104 people, making it the world's second-deadliest wildfire of the 21st century.

In Greece, hundreds of firefighters battled on Saturday to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as strong winds pushed flames through the coastal area west of Athens. The fire broke out on Friday near the neighbouring village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued more evacuation orders on Saturday. Towering flames tore through thick pine forest around Porto Germeno as smoke blocked out the sun.

"A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire," said Minas Tzortzanis, a 60-year-old farmer and local resident. "There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction." He said homes, trees and animals in the forest had been destroyed. Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the Observatory of Athens, estimated that 40 to 50 square kilometres had been affected, though authorities had not issued an official burned-area figure. Nearly 500 firefighters, along with specialised forest-fire teams and crews temporarily deployed from France and Romania, were backed by 19 water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters. Local authorities said homes had been destroyed, but a full count was not immediately available.

New fires also broke out elsewhere in Greece on Saturday, including a blaze east of Nafpaktos that triggered evacuation alerts for at least four villages. Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said, "The very strong to gale-force winds continue to create exceptionally difficult conditions," adding that extreme turbulence was stopping some aircraft from collecting water or getting close enough to the fires to make drops. Across Europe, even as conditions improved in France, Spain and Portugal, the wildfire threat remained severe, with Greece facing the most dangerous conditions on Saturday.

Europe remains the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union's Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought leave vegetation drier and more combustible, helping fires spread faster and burn more intensely. Saturday's developments reflected that contrast across the continent, with the emergency easing in parts of western Europe even as it deepened sharply in Greece.

With PTI Inputs

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