Firefighters in France battle to prevent huge blaze from approaching Bordeaux

Firefighters prepare to join efforts to contain the vast wildfire in the Gironde region in south-west France. Photograph: Astrid Lagougne/EPA View image in fullscreen Firefighters prepare to join efforts to contain the vast wildfire in the Gironde region in south-west France. Photograph: Astrid Lagougne/EPA Firefighters in France battle to prevent huge blaze from approaching Bordeaux Efforts to contain wildfire that has consumed an area of four times the size of Paris impeded by windy conditions Europe wildfires live – latest updates Authorities are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in south-west France that has consumed an area of land four times the size of Paris. Efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region, where nearly 220,000 people have been evacuated, were hampered by windy conditions on Saturday night. In Spain , fires west of Madrid were being brought under control, but the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez spoke of “difficult hours” ahead, saying the country was suffering the effects of the climate emergency. Wildfires have forced more than 375,000 people to flee their homes in France and Spain. 0:59 Firefighters in Spain and France battle raging wildfires – video Bordeaux’s mayor, Thomas Cazenave, described the Gironde blaze as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area”, between 15 and 20 miles (25 and 30km) from the city itself, which has a population of 268,000. An evacuation of the city was not on the cards, he said. Nearly 260,000 people have been evacuated across France as a whole, including 36,000 ordered to leave another wildfire zone in the Landes region further south earlier this week. The country’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on Sunday that the previous night had been difficult and “the situation remains very unfavourable”. He said the Gironde fire had become “extremely virulent and unpredictable again” early on Saturday night, generating its own wind and spreading erratically towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. It had become calmer by the end of the night, he said. About 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss team, 1,500 military personnel and about 1,200 police had been deployed to Gironde, Nuñez said, as he praised the contribution of 450 volunteers from civil security organisations. View image in fullscreen A drone view of an area burned by the wildfire in the village of Le Porge, Gironde. Photograph: Manon Cruz/Reuters He said another five Gironde municipalities had been evacuated overnight. One firefighter told Agence France-Presse that the fire was so virulent it had formed a pyrocumulonimbus, a fire-generated thunderstorm that “creates its own wind, with whirlwinds, becoming erratic and uncontrollable”. The French prime minister, Sébastian Lecornu, had warned late on Saturday that the coming hours would be difficult as the weather changed. “France is facing a historic situation,” he wrote on X. “Nearly 100,000 hectares have already burned, an unprecedented level and around thirty