Europe live: Officials warn that wildfires could still be burning in November

As part of their efforts to stop the spread of blaze, French firefighters are sometimes force to cut some trees down to create a natural firebreak and deprive the fire of further fuel – as we can see in these pictures from Gironde.

The wildfires around Bordeaux in southwestern France have delivered a shock to the regional economy, finance minister Roland Lescure said.

The region is one of the centres of French wine production and a major centre for tourism, Reuters noted.

“It’s like a clap of thunder for an area which ​could have done without this,” Lescure told reporters.

in Brussels

EU officials have warned that wildfires could still be burning as late as early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land consumed by flames.

A European Commission official said the wildfire season had begun in April and could last until early November. The European commissioner for crisis response Hadja Lahbib has said it is likely the damage from wildfires will exceed previous records.

The EU executive has coordinated the dispatch of seven planes and four helicopters to France, as well as six planes and three forest firefighting teams to Spain, after both countries triggered the bloc’s emergency assistance mechanism.

EU officials have also been dispatched to the Bordeaux region to assist local authorities, who are grappling with the mega fire in the Gironde region that has burned an area four times the size of Paris.

Officials stressed the unprecedented nature of the fires, which spread rapidly over large areas.

A recent fire in southern Spain that killed 13 people tore threw land at speeds of six km an hour, whereas fire fighters on the ground can respond to fires moving at 300m an hour.

The European Union is ramping up the number of firefighting planes and helicopters sent to help tackle blazes raging in southwest France, the bloc’s crisis management chief told AFP.

“We currently have nine aerial assets deployed on site, and tomorrow we will have 11, drawn from our European strategic reserve,” EU commissioner Hadja Lahbib said.

Looks like president Emmanuel Macron will on Monday go to an area ravaged by a forest fire in southwest France to show support to firefighters and local officials.

That’s what the Élysée Palace says, AFP is reporting.

I will keep an eye on this for you.

Environment editor

Dr Theodore Keeping, an expert on the analysis of extreme weather and wildfires at Imperial College London, offered this take on the wildfires in Europe:

“These fires in Spain and France are some of the most extreme we have seen in Europe, in their size, in rapidity of spread, and in the pyrocumulonimbus storms they have created.

Whilst wildfires are affected by people, and need vegetation, the hot and dry summer weather we have seen is the key driver of this extreme behaviour. Consecutive windy, and very hot days mean that a fire will continue to grow faster and larger until it runs out of vegetation, and when this intensity increases to a very high level, we see the formation of pyrocumulonimbus systems which often strengthen and continue the winds driving the fire.

Climate change is causing these conditions to become much more likely and more intense, which is why we are seeing much more extreme wildfires across Europe.

“The impacts of these fires go beyond evacuations and destroyed property. From the science, we would expect major economic impacts due to the disruption, and wildfire smoke from major events is deadly. Estimates are for well over 100,000 excess deaths globally due to smoke exposure from wildfires.”

Wildfires are once again affecting communities in France and Spain, with people forced to evacuate their homes, travel disrupted and smoke affecting air quality in many areas.

We would like to hear from people who have been affected. Have you had to evacuate your home? How are you coping? Are you living with smoke, poor air quality or the threat of evacuation?

Let us know.

As France and Spain battle some of the worst wildfires in recent history, experts have warned of an unprecedented phenomenon that could exacerbate the effects of the blazes: pyrocumulonimbus, or “fire clouds”.

Wildfires often spread when hot, windy and dry conditions coalesce but severe wildfires can generate their own unique weather systems. One of the most striking examples of this are pyrocumulonimbus clouds, or fire-generated thunderstorms, which are the most severe form of fire clouds.

In a nutshell, pyrocumulonimbus, or “pyroCb” clouds, are gigantic storm clouds that are generated by a wildfire.

Massive wildfires emit large amounts of energy and heat that rapidly rise in a smoke plume. When the fire plume rises high enough, low atmospheric pressure causes its air to cool, and the moisture condenses and forms a cloud. Such clouds can generate lightning strikes and windy conditions.

If a wildfire is sufficiently large and intense, the smoke plume it generates can form a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, which can reach altitudes of 10–15km (six to nine miles) and penetrate the stratosphere. Nasa calls them the “fire-breathing dragon of clouds”.

“It’s a full thunderstorm forming within the fire plume,” says Rick McRae, an adjunct professor from the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) bushfire research group. “These things, they get up to roughly 10,000 cubic kilometres of the atmosphere, so they have a big impact.”

Since Nuñez mentioned pyrocumulonimbus, or “fire clouds”, let’s get a bit more detail on what they actually are…

Over in Paris, France’s interior minister Laurent Nuñez is just briefing the media on the latest on wildfires after a emergency meeting chaired by president Emmanuel Macron (10:38).

He says this year’s wildfires are “completely exceptional,” with over 116,000 hectares of forest and vegetation burned since the beginning of the year, way above average, and far exceeding the 70,000 hectares reported in total last year.

On the fire in Gironde, he says it is “stabilised” but “not contained,” and remains “very complicated to control,” with a number of “unprecedented” phenomena observed, including pyrocumulonimbus clouds, reported in France for the first time ever.

Nuñez repeatedly thanks the emergency services for their work so far, but wearily warns that “the season is far from over.”

On a more domestic point, he also is particularly annoyed by some “ridiculous” reporting criticising France’s aerial firefighting fleet, which he says is very diverse and well set to fight fires.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is speaking in Castellón, giving a news briefing after visiting a local forward command post.

He warns against “lots of disinformation” and conspiracy theories spreading on social media about the causes of the fires.

He speaks of the need for people to remain properly informed about the fires and their causes, and criticises those who are using social media to pump out hoaxes and fake news.

Over recent days, false stories have circulated on social media, claiming the fires have been intentionally started in order to clear the ground for new solar panel installations or to explore new areas for mining.

“Sadly, we’re seeing a lot of fake news during this emergency,” says Sánchez. “And all that does is create more worries and more anxiety for people.”

Sánchez clearly attributes the blazes to a “climate emergency” as per comments made earlier this morning (10:05).

He adds that the government will adopt new measures intended to help people affected by the fires, working alongside local authorities to “begin assessing the magnitude of the damages” caused.

But looking ahead, he says that while the government will support recovery efforts, it needs to step up preparedness for similar incidents in the future.

Pointing to the risks associated with a new heatwave expected later this week, he asks citizens to “exercise extreme caution,” and follow instructions from local authorities.

Spanish meteorological agency, AEMET, warned earlier today that starting tomorrow, “a sharp rise in temperatures will push the danger to very high/extreme levels across most of the country.”

in Rome

Over in Italy, as firefighters fought on Monday to extinguish a devastating wildfire in the southern region of Puglia, forcing the evacuation by sea of hundreds of people, a further 58 were evacuated from their homes in Maratea as a wildfire swept through neighbouring Basilicata.

More than 400 people, many of them tourists staying in campsites set among pine forests, were evacuated by sea in Puglia’s Gargano peninsula on Sunday as the blaze, fanned by strong winds, encroached beaches.

In Maratea, Canadair firefighting planes are battling to contain a wildfire in the mountains overlooking the town. There was a huge fire in the outskirts of Rome on Sunday, stalling traffic, while trains in the Molise region have been disrupted due to wildfires there.

More than half of wildfires in Italy are caused by arsonists, according to the most recent figures from Ispra, the Italian institute for environmental protection and research. In 2025, 123 km² of forest area across the country was destroyed by wildfires – the equivalent of 135,000 football pitches.

Officials in Calabria last week said arsonists were using cats to spread wildfires there by wrapping them with rags soaked in flammable liquid and setting them alight, sparking widespread condemnation from animal rights’ groups.

Italy is bracing itself for the fourth intense heatwave so far this year as temperatures edge up towards highs of 38-40C from Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Météo-France has just confirmed its weather forecast for this week, with temperatures expected to return to mid- to high 30s on Tuesday, and peak near 40C in the southwest of France on Wednesday.

It will be the fourth extreme heatwave of the summer, the service said.

Over in Spain, Francisco Martín, the central government’s representative in the Madrid region, has just told a media briefing that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the ongoing operation, but warned that the fire still remained out of control.

“We must seize this window of opportunity. We will defeat this fire.”

But he also repeated his call for residents to follow instructions from local authorities to protect themselves from further fires.

Similar concerns about the impact a returning heatwave could have on firefighting operations were echoed in France.

Lt Col David Annotel told RTL Radio this morning that the fire in Gironde could last “several weeks or months” before it is fully extinguished, with reinforcements expected to be needed from across the country.

Echoing comments made in Spain, he said the next two to three days offer a chance to “take advantage” of the weather conditions before the heatwave makes the situation more difficult to manage again.

He said it took months to extinguish a much smaller fire in Landiras in 2022, and he expected the same pattern to repeat happen here.

Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Spain faces two “decisive” days to contain wildfires before the new heatwave hits the country, making the emergency response even trickier.

He said that around 3,000 emergency workers were in the area battling the blaze.