France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

A wildfire burns near Cestas in Gironde province in south-west France. Photograph: Julien Soulard/EPA View image in fullscreen A wildfire burns near Cestas in Gironde province in south-west France. Photograph: Julien Soulard/EPA France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins Coming days are ‘absolutely critical’ for firefighters before temperatures rise again this week, officials say Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to bring huge wildfires under control before another heatwave this week that will complicate efforts to tame the flames. Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said Monday and Tuesday were “absolutely crucial days” before temperatures rise again from Wednesday, prompting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to warn: “We face difficult hours, complex hours” ahead. EU officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land burned. 11:13 Race against time to contain wildfires in France and Spain - The Latest A fire in the hilly terrain of Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, burning 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres). Authorities are battling two separate fires north-west of Madrid, taking the total area of scorched land near the capital to 70,000 hectares. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, said the heatwave would last until “at least” Sunday, “making firefighting efforts more difficult due to high temperatures [and] locally gusty southerly winds”. France was also in “a race against time” to control wildfires before another heatwave this week, said Eric Brocardi, a fire service spokesperson. Weather forecasters have said temperatures could reach 40C (104F) is some parts of the country from Tuesday. View image in fullscreen Charred cars in the Spanish village of Chapinería on Monday. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters This would complicate efforts to control the wildfire in Gironde in south-west France, which the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, described as “extremely intense and unpredictable … generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area”. The mayor of Bordeaux, Thomas Cazenave, told the BBC he is bracing for “all eventualities”, as the fire advanced to within 15km (nine miles) from the city. “We are preparing to accommodate a large number of people should further evacuations be ordered,” he said. On a visit to Bordeaux, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “The coming weeks will be tough and we have to hold out.” But he said a smaller fire in the adjoining Landes – which forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people – was “contained” but remained “virulent”. “We must be extremely cautious over the next few hours and the coming days,” he said. The Gironde fire has so far burned 42,000 hectares, making it one of the biggest devastations of land in France since the second world war. In the Cestas commune, about 10