A plane releases fire retardant as it flies over a forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France, July 29, 2026.
Emma Da Silva/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Emma Da Silva/AP
BORDEAUX, France — Firefighters in southwestern France said Friday they were working on four active hotspots as they tried to put out fires that ripped through 100,000 acres of forest, villages and farmland over the past week.
Lt. Col. Eric Pitault, the spokesman for firefighters in the Gironde region, said that while the situation had “stabilized,” there are still several zones that are difficult for responders to access.
He said authorities were hoping to have full control by the weekend.
Tens of thousands of people near Bordeaux who were evacuated due to fire risk were allowed to return to their homes on Thursday night, as the rest of Europe continued to tackle a historic heatwave.
“It’s the first somewhat optimistic day,” said Sophie Brocas, prefect of Bordeaux’s Gironde region, as she allowed the 84,000 evacuees to return home. Some 60,000 had been allowed to return to their homes on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
“Our feeling is that we’re getting back to the path of a normal life,” Brocas added.
Some of these evacuations were preemptive. Authorities said there are no known civilian casualties. However, two firefighters lost their lives battling a forest fire near Bordeaux-Merignac Airport earlier in July.
Despite thousands being allowed to return home, many people remain in temporary shelters, including the Bordeaux convention center, which NPR visited this week.
Among the 6,000 people – and their many pets – taking shelter was 90-year-old Marie Lalana, who told NPR that she had fled her home so quickly that she forgot everything she needed, including her teeth, glasses and hearing aids.
Aurélien Costes, a scientist with the San José State University, told NPR that this year’s intense fires in France have resembled similar blazes in California, saying they are likely to become more frequent as temperatures rise.
“You can have downdrafts that are very intense, and so when the downdrafts hit the ground, they can form winds that are going in any direction,” Costes said. “This makes the fire behavior very erratic so it’s very hard for the firefighters to anticipate what the fire is doing.”
Another wildfire in the southeastern town of Brignoles this week forced hundreds of people to evacuate, including Hollywood actor George Clooney, his wife, Amal, and their children, according to the Associated Press.
A firefighter walks in front of burning trees as a wildfire rages near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, July 26, 2026.
Emma Da Silva/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Emma Da Silva/AP
Heatwave across Europe
The fires in France are part of an unusually long spate of hot weather across Europe, which scientists from World Weather Attribution say have created conditions that make wildfires more likely across the continent.
This week, thousands of people were evacuated from the Greek island of Crete as fires burned on the south coast, according to the Associated Press. On Wednesday, two firefighters died on the island, while a third firefighter died battling a separate blaze on the Greek mainland.
In Germany, firefighters using drones and helicopters battled a forest fire near the Austrian border, according to the Associated Press, while in Turkey, responders tackled forest fires in four western provinces.
In England, firefighters worked to contain a fire near a nuclear power plant on Britain’s east coast. The blaze, in the county of Suffolk, broke out on Wednesday afternoon, and quickly grew to over 350 acres, just three miles away from Sizewell B nuclear power station.
Over 100 firefighters and a helicopter were sent to tackle the flames, and late on Thursday night, authorities said the situation was stabilizing.
Earlier this week, the Environment Agency declared that half of England was in drought, due to a combination of weeks of very low rainfall and high temperatures. Rivers are running low, wildfire risk is increasing, and millions of people are living under restrictions over how much water they are allowed to use in their homes, the agency said.
On Thursday, Hungary Prime Minister Péter Magyar said officials would shut down the country’s only nuclear power plant due to record low water levels in the nearby Danube River. The river’s water is usually used to cool the plant.
Similarly, Romania shut down both reactors at its Cernavoda nuclear power plant, also citing low water levels in the Danube River that is used to cool them, according to Reuters.
The effects of climate change
On Friday, a network of scientists who use weather observations and climate models to understand how climate change influences the intensity and likelihood of extreme weather events said that climate change had contributed to recent fires in France and Spain.
In a new study, World Weather Attribution said that human-induced climate change made the fire-prone conditions at least twice as likely in southwestern France and at least 20 times as likely in central Spain.
In Spain, several fires raged earlier this month, with a major wildfire near Madrid, and another in the country’s Castellón region, forcing several tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. At least one person from Manises, a town in Valencia, died in the fires, local officials said.
