Europe's Fire Week: 300,000 Evacuated as France and Spain Fight Record Blazes

Wildfires across southwestern Europe forced more than 300,000 people from their homes in late July as heat, wind, and dry fuel turned separate blazes in France, Spain, and Portugal into a regional emergency.

The BBC's more-than-300,000 figure across France, Spain, and Portugal is the best single public tally for the mid-to-late July wave.

Even that package was not enough for local officials trying to hold villages and industrial edges at once.

Authorities that lift orders still ask for alertness because a shift in wind can reopen a flank that looked cold at dawn and was not.

Capacity is a budget choice made in cold months, not a miracle requested in a heatwave press conference.

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More than 300,000 people fled wildfires across France, Spain, and Portugal. Gironde and Madrid-region fires set modern records while heat near 42C threatened hard-won lines.

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