Raging Wildfires Drive Mass Evacuations Across Southern Europe

(MENAFN) Blistering winds and severe drought conditions are driving forest fires across Spain and France, endangering communities, triggering evacuations, lockdowns, and mobilizing emergency and military forces.

In Spain, a wildfire erupted late Monday night in the Barranco de las Cinco Villas area, located south of Ávila province, creating a "serious risk situation," officials confirmed. The fire began around 11:10 pm local time (0910 GMT) and quickly expanded due to strong gusts, impacting multiple towns including Cuevas del Valle and Mombeltrán, according to media.


Authorities in the Castile and León region escalated the emergency to the highest alert level as the fire neared inhabited zones. Mombeltrán, a municipality with close to 1,000 residents, was placed under a partial lockdown to safeguard the population. The military’s Emergency Unit (Unidad Militar de Emergencias) has been deployed to bolster firefighting operations.

Additional blazes have been reported in other parts of Spain, such as Zarzalejos in the Madrid region—where conditions have since stabilized—and Tenerife island, where precautionary evacuations are underway.

Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, Interior Minister Daniel Mitov highlighted progress in controlling wildfires, noting an overall decline in fire activity.

“Fires in the country are decreasing, tensions are easing, and some of them have been brought under control, such as the one in Tran,” Mitov said at an operational briefing, the Bulgarian news agency reported.

He commended the General Directorate for Fire Safety and Population Protection for their efforts and urged citizens to be vigilant, warning that “most of the fires are caused by negligence or deliberate actions.”

In France, Meteo-France has issued a “high” fire alert for six departments in the south, as reported by media. The affected regions include Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Gard, Aude, and Pyrénées-Orientales.

On Monday, a wildfire near Marseille led to the closure of the A7 and A51 highways in both directions, causing significant traffic disruption and temporarily halting flights at Marseille-Provence Airport.

The prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône warned residents via X to avoid the affected zones and to refrain from traveling through Aix-en-Provence or Vitrolles due to hazardous smoke.

Meteorological forecasts predict the “forest weather” conditions will maintain a high fire risk across parts of southern France through Wednesday, with Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, and Aude remaining on heightened alert.

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