Wildfire threatens Bordeaux as more than 300,000 leave homes in France and Spain

With the weather expected to get hotter, French President Emmanuel Macron will hold an emergency cabinet meeting today.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from Bordeaux’s surrounding region of Gironde in France.

The main fire has caused an unprecedented “pyrocumulonimbus” – a giant fire thunderstorm fuelled by its own winds and lightning, the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF) said.

Despite this, the Gironde prefecture said on Monday that the situation had remained “broadly stable” overnight.

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Sunday the situation remained “very unfavourable” and the fire was “moving erratically” towards the city.

Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave also said on Sunday there were no plans to evacuate the city’s population of about 850,000.

Map of south-west France showing active wildfires recorded in the last 24 hours. Large clusters of red dots mark fire activity around Arcachon Bay, concentrated to the south west of Bordeaux and between Lège-Cap-Ferret and Le Porge on the Atlantic coast. A second sizeable cluster is located near Biscarrosse to the south. Bordeaux is labelled inland to the east, while Arcachon Bay and the Bay of Biscay are labelled in blue along the coastline. An inset map of France in the top left highlights the location of the affected area.
Image caption,

Map showing active fire data in France as of 26 July

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