Responding to the spread of fires, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid’s regional president, said it was: “The worst fire in the history of the region.”
Speaking at an emergency command post in the southwestern municipality of Cenicientos, she said the area was facing a “perfect storm” with high temperatures, relentless wind and several fire fronts merging.
“The situation is completely unusual and catastrophic,” she said, adding that the priority was saving lives.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez spoke of a “dramatic situation” and urged people to take great care. Three fires were burning west of Madrid, at Villa del Prado and San Martín de Valdeiglesias.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 40,000 people had either been or were in the process of being evacuated from the Cap Ferret peninsula, which has the Atlantic on one side and the Bay of Arcachon on the other.
Local prefect Sophie Brocas said 53 homes had been lost as well as a campsite, but that 2,000 houses had been saved.
A local councillor said 2,000 evacuees from the peninsula had already arrived by boat in the port of Arcachon on the south side of the bay.
Fire and rescue chief Marc Vermeulen said the wildfire had spread rapidly at the end of Thursday and into the early hours of Friday. Authorities then took the decision on Friday morning to begin the evacuation of the town of Arès, which lies south-east of Lège-Cap Ferret on the Bay of Arcachon.
Vermeulen compared the fires overnight to those in 2022 – explaining the area is in a more severe state of drought now.
While in 2022, fires were “exploding” at the end of the day and the nights were favourable for firefighting, in the current fires they are exploding during the night at midnight or 01:00.
“When I say explosion, it means that for several hours, we had propagation speeds on the order of 800 to 1,000 hectares burned per hour, in the context of a suburban area.”
