LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) 鈥� France says it will use a massive specially adapted cargo aircraft on Saturday to dump flame retardants on a wildfire that has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, including from some suburbs of the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the hulking A400M aircraft will join what is expected to be a 鈥渓ong and very difficult鈥� battle against the blaze raging in the Gironde region of western France.
That blaze and another wildfire in the Landes region have together forced 197,000 people to evacuate, he said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP鈥檚 earlier story follows below.
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) 鈥� Authorities in France evacuated some suburbs of Bordeaux on Saturday as a famous for its wines. The government mobilized soldiers to join the battle against the flames and rushed in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.
The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux ordered the evacuation for parts of three of the city鈥檚 western suburbs, including its airport. Other towns and villages further west of the city were also ordered to evacuate, adding to the tally of 141,000 people who’d previously already been told to move in the face of two major fires in the southwestern Gironde and Landes regions.
Prime Minister S茅bastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze had become so strong that it was generating its own winds.
鈥淥ur priority is clear: protecting human lives,鈥� he posted on X, adding that evacuation orders 鈥渕ust be respected without delay.鈥�
He said firefighting teams were being reinforced Saturday with the addition of hundreds of soldiers and that breathing masks to filter out smoke particles were being rushed to the Gironde region for those exposed to the clouds of potentially noxious fumes.
All told, massive forest fires have forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people in southwestern and central , including 60,000 forced from their homes west of Madrid and the 141,000 told to move in the Gironde and Landes departments of France.
Blazes caught authorities off guard
The virulence of the wildfires, fueled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change, caught fire crews and authorities off guard in both countries. Firefighters in Spain said the blazes spread so fast and violently that they could not be tackled head on. In France, some people even fled by boat when flames swept through touristic towns on the Atlantic coast.
Dozens of French firefighters have been injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country despite the scenes of panic as townsfolk fled by car and police went door to door to tell people to leave as large plumes of smoke darkened the skies.
Successive heat waves that hit unusually early and hard this year, baking Europe with record-shattering high temperatures, have turned forests and scrublands into tinderboxes.
Fires have burned 130,000 hectares of forest already this year in Spain, up from an annual average of 100,000 hectares over the past decade, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S谩nchez said Saturday as he visited a command post west of Madrid.
He said more favorable weather Saturday offered 鈥渁 window of opportunity鈥� for fire crews to bring the blazes under control. Madrid’s regional government said the fires decreased in intensity as winds and temperatures dropped.
Other European nations were helping. Italy said two of its Canadair water-dumping firefighting planes deployed to Spain. Spain鈥檚 Civil Protection Service said it was expecting the arrival Saturday of two others from Greece, to join aircraft from the Netherlands and Portugal already deployed in Spain.
France was expecting two water-bombers from Croatia as well as two other planes from Portugal and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Wildfire headed toward Bordeaux
Gironde region prefect Sophie Brocas said on Friday night that strong winds from the west were pushing the fire closer to the Bordeaux metropolitan area and that it had grown to 鈥渁n unprecedented magnitude.鈥�
鈥淭he scale of the fire changed,” she said. “To combat it, we will receive extremely significant national reinforcements. Reinforcements in firefighters, of course, reinforcements in military personnel, reinforcements in healthcare workers, reinforcements in experts. So, we are going to form a much larger team to face this extraordinary fire.鈥�
People covered by the evacuation orders were being sent special alerts to their mobile phones, giving them instructions to leave.
鈥淲e want everyone to be quickly brought to safety. We must act quickly together,鈥� Brocas said.
The Gironde blaze broke out Wednesday near the Cap Ferret peninsula on France鈥檚 Atlantic coast, located 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described it Friday as “a large, self-sustaining fire that is extremely difficult to bring under control.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 quite impressive and even frightening,鈥� said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Ar猫s. 鈥淎n evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.鈥�
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Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press journalist Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.
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