Wildfires ravage parts of southern France, Italy and Spain

Wildfires are raging in Sicily, southwestern France and central Spain, having claimed the lives of three firefighters and sparked thousands of evacuations.

Temperatures topped 40C and gusts of hot wind fanned the flames in the southern Italian island, where wildfires have been burning for several days.

Around 6000 firefighters, forest guards and civil protection officials are battling the flames with the help of water-bombing aircraft, the head of the region, Renato Schifani, said. Fifty fires are still raging.

Scientists agree that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making extreme weather events such as fires and heatwaves more likely and more severe.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said a firefighter died after falling ill while deployed.

Temperatures over 40C and hot winds have intensified the fires, with around 6000 firefighters deployed. Photo / Romain Perrocheau, AFP

A spokesperson for the Italian Civil Protection Agency told AFP the situation in Sicily was “serious” and that the fires were “being fuelled by very high temperatures and very dry soil”.

More than 160 fires have also been recorded in the neighbouring Calabria region which the head of local civil protection said were deliberate cases of arson by “malicious individuals” who had among other things tied rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread fires.

In France, two firefighters died yesterday tackling a blaze that broke out near Bordeaux Airport.

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez met the firefighters’ families today, as unions warned workers were facing “exhaustion” and a lack of resources.

Two fires displaced thousands of people in the country’s southwest and one ravaged more than 1400ha in the picturesque Arcachon Basin region near Bordeaux.

“We’re dealing with a very dense stand of closely packed pines,” firefighter Captain Wilfried Schneider told AFP, describing a fire of “rare” intensity.

Big black cloud

Climate change is blamed for increasing the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events. Photo / Romain Perrocheau, AFP

“We saw a big cloud of black smoke spread across the sky in the middle of the afternoon,” said Julie Leonard, a Bordeaux resident who came with her family to the affected Le Porge area but in a spot not under threat.

“If I’d been brave, I would have stayed in my cabin, but it was too hot. I got in my car and left,” resident Bernard Roche said.

The 75-year-old former lifeguard has lived in the area for 35 years. “In the forest, it’s been particularly dry these last few days.”

Le Porge’s Mayor Martial Zaninetti said the fire could have been started by a machine used to clear forest track but this is yet to be officially confirmed.

Around 700 people left their homes as a precaution in Le Porge, where more than 3000 campers were also relocated, the prefecture said.

A blaze that raced through wooded hills in another part of southern France, forcing hundreds from their homes, was being contained, officials said.

The fire erupted in the Var region and spread at an unexpectedly fast pace, forcing some 400 people to evacuate and devouring 2550ha.

A fire is raging in a region along France’s Mediterranean coast between the cities of Marseille and Nice. Photo / Romain Perrocheau, AFP

Nearly 1000 firefighters and specialised water aircraft battled to contain the blaze in the region that lies along France’s Mediterranean coast between the cities of Marseille and Nice.

In total, 4600 people have been evacuated and the Gironde Prefect Sophie Brocas has called for hundreds more to leave.

In Spain, authorities ordered the evacuation of several districts around the city of Toledo, south of Madrid, after a major wildfire threatened homes.

Emergency alerts were sent by phone to residents and several arterial roads were cut off, the Civil Guard said.

Emergency services said that “due to the progression” of the fire, three villages had been ordered evacuated and people in a fourth had been told to stay in their homes with doors and windows closed “until further notice”.

Toledo is 75km from the capital.

The new blaze spread as hundreds of firefighters battled a major wildfire that has devastated 32,000ha about 100km north of Madrid.

In 2025, more than 393,000ha had been consumed by flames in Spain, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, the worst toll in the country’s recent history.

- AFP