From Athens to Bordeaux, Europe’s wildfire emergency rages on
LACANAU, France (AP) — Europe’s wildfire crisis fractured along starkly different fronts Sunday: gale-force winds drove flames deeper into the Athens region and forced fresh evacuations, France guarded a still-burning scar four times the size of Paris against renewed spread, and Spain’s major fires finally stopped advancing.
The center of immediate danger was Greece. Flames spread through western Attica, the capital's surrounding region, threatening villages and an industrial district outside Megara as violent gusts prevented firefighting aircraft from collecting water from the sea.
Earlier this week, two firefighters died battling a blaze on Crete, while a third was killed in a separate fire in the Peloponnese.
But the easing emergency farther west offered little sense of an ending. France’s largest wildfire remained contained after 224,000 people were forced to flee in what may have been the largest civilian evacuation outside wartime. Active pockets still burned across 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of devastated forest, thousands remained unable to return home, and nearly 3,000 firefighters were deployed against that blaze and a second, still-uncontained fire in Provence.
Fires in France and Spain alone have driven roughly a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied communities at the height of the European summer and stretched firefighters, aircraft and emergency services across simultaneous disasters.
Europe entered 2026 after its worst wildfire year on record, when more than 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) burned. Wildfires cause estimated economic losses of about 2 billion euros in a typical year, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
The crisis is unfolding on the world’s fastest-warming continent. Europe has warmed at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Human-caused climate change doubled the likelihood of the extreme fire conditions that fueled the French blazes this year, scientists at World Weather Attribution calculated in a rapid analysis while the fires were still burning.
Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were deployed, but gale-force winds fanned the fire while crippling the response. The winds drove flames through dry forest and made it impossible for some aircraft to descend to the sea for water.
Smoke rose over the mountains as evacuation orders were issued for the communities of Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was briefed on the operation, with authorities particularly concerned about Porto Germeno, a seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth.
Elsewhere, flames burned dangerously close to homes on Kefalonia, forcing evacuations from inland villages as aircraft made water drops over the Ionian tourist island. On the mainland, nearly 50 firefighters, a specialist wildfire unit, 16 engines and a helicopter battled another blaze near Nea Tenedos in Halkidiki.
The fire began Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of Athens.
Firefighters evacuated 254 people by sea from Agios Vasileios on Friday and another 12 from Porto Germeno on Saturday — an escape route of last resort in coastal communities where fire and smoke can cut the few roads out.
Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros estimated Saturday that the blaze had affected 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles), though authorities had not issued an official figure.
“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” local farmer Minas Tzortzanis said Saturday. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”
The danger carried grim resonance in Greece. In 2018, a wind-driven wildfire trapped residents in the seaside community of Mati, east of Athens, killing 104 people in Europe’s deadliest wildfire this century.
In southwestern France, the Gironde megafire remained contained Sunday but was still burning after scorching 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of forest in just 10 days.
“The fire is now fixed, which does not mean that the fire is extinguished,” the Gironde prefecture said Sunday, using the French firefighting term for a blaze whose advance has been stopped and whose perimeter has been contained.
The region remained under France’s highest red forest-fire alert. Dry conditions and soaring temperatures around Bordeaux, combined with afternoon winds, created a continued risk of renewed flames.
In Le Porge, one of the communities hardest hit, local officials said about 150 homes were destroyed.
Mechanic Matthieu Plessis returned Saturday to the ruins of a home that had been in his family for seven generations.
“There are places I don’t even recognize anymore,” he said. “You don’t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where.”
Additional firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were expected Sunday and Monday to reinforce the operation.
Hundreds of kilometers away, nearly 1,500 firefighters were battling a separate fire in the southeastern Var department that tore through roughly 18 square kilometers (7 square miles) in little more than a day.
Authorities said the fire in the Gros Bessillon hills was stabilized Sunday morning, meaning its perimeter had not expanded overnight. But unlike the Gironde fire, it had not yet been declared contained.
Firefighting aircraft supported crews working to keep the flames away from villages among the vineyards, olive groves and wooded hills of the region known as Green Provence.
About 2,500 people were evacuated as the fire threatened communities.
The blaze was the fourth major fire to strike the central Var since July 19. A separate, smaller fire near Brignoles earlier in the week forced Hollywood actor George Clooney and his family, along with about 700 other residents, to evacuate before it was brought under control.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said France’s wildfires were generally under control but cautioned that conditions remained highly changeable.
He also announced that a national coordinator attached to the prime minister’s office would oversee reconstruction in fire-ravaged areas.
More than 1,170 square kilometers (452 square miles) have burned across France since the beginning of the year.
Spain’s major fires — part of a season that has killed at least 13 people, produced the country’s largest recorded wildfire and prompted a national emergency — were no longer advancing Sunday.
In Zamora province near the Portuguese border, more than 20 ground and aerial units remained deployed around the Fermoselle fire, maintaining its perimeter and guarding against flare-ups in the rugged Arribes del Duero landscape. Most evacuees had returned home, according to local media.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for a national pact to confront wildfires, warning that climate change is making them more destructive.
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Adamson reported from Paris. Michael Varaklas in Megara, Greece contributed to this report
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