Fire Whirlwinds Force Nearly Half a Million From Homes in France and Spain
More than 340,000 evacuated as blazes merge and at least 14 confirmed dead in Spain
By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
The smoke over Bordeaux was visible before the flames were. By Sunday, French authorities had pushed the evacuation order past 340,000 people, one of the largest peacetime civilian evacuations in the country's history, according to the Guardian's live coverage of the crisis. Around 200,000 of those evacuated came from the region around Bordeaux alone, Al Jazeera reported, as fires described by officials as producing 'fire whirlwinds' tore through pine forest and vineyard alike in southwestern France.
Across the border in Spain, the toll has been worse. At least 14 people have died as blazes devastate the country, Al Jazeera reported, after two separate fires merged into a single, larger conflagration. NPR reported at least one confirmed fatality in an earlier report, with figures rising as the fires spread, a reminder that casualty counts in fast-moving disasters often lag the reality on the ground, and readers should expect the numbers to keep changing.
Emergency shelters in both countries filled over the weekend with families carrying what they could grab: pets, papers, a change of clothes. Officials have not yet put a total cost on the damage, and no source reviewed here offers a count of homes lost or an estimate of when residents might return.
The fires arrive amid a summer of extreme heat across Europe, though none of the sources given here draw a direct causal line to climate change for this specific event, a connection worth watching for in the coming days as fire scientists weigh in.
For now, the story is smoke, evacuation buses, and a death toll that is not finished counting.
— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian, Al Jazeera and NPR.
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