An added difficulty has developed in France thanks to the emergence of a rare meteorological phenomenon—a pyrocumulonimbus, more commonly known as a "fire cloud."
As of Wednesday afternoon, firefighters in the south-western Gironde region continued battling the blazes as temperatures reached around 39°C (near 102°F) amid another western Europe heat wave.
Amid concern the high temperatures may result in the fires worsening or contained blazes restarting, there are also fears that fire clouds, often thought of as fire-generated thunderstorms, could make the wildfires more dangerous.
Here’s what you need to know about the rare phenomenon—and the hazards associated with it.
Jean-Baptiste Filippi, a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), tells TIME that the clouds fall into two categories: pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus (also known as pyroCb).
"That's level one, because you're adding this to the energy of the fire to create the convective column," he says, referring to a vertical stream of hot, rising gas.
"Level two is pyrocumulonimbus," he says. "Imagine now that this energy is enough to overshoot the lower atmosphere and go up to almost the stratosphere."
"The energy is there anyway. It's ready to be released," Filippi says. "It's going to be triggered on top of the fire, and then it will start to interact and make it blow up. If the fire was not there, it would probably be a storm, but somewhere else."
"It's because both are occurring at the same time, and it's this combo that is causing the problem," Filippi tells TIME.
How do fire clouds make wildfires more dangerous?
The clouds create conditions that can make fires stronger and allow them to spread more rapidly.
"Then the fire is raging more and propagating at [a] higher speed with more energy, so it injects even more water vapor. The cloud is getting bigger, and then it is sucking air [in a stronger way]. Then you have this feedback loop, making an acceleration," Filippi says.
Additionally, studies have found wildfire smoke can make some clouds denser, making it harder for them to drop rain that could help dampen the fires.
Instead, "you're gonna have a big downdraft. You're gonna have thunder. Then you can have some other effects, like lifting ashes up into the stratosphere," he notes, adding that the ash could later fall onto neighboring areas, raising the need for precautionary evacuation measures.
This aerial photograph shows smoke emanating from the wildfire north of the Arcachon basin, with a view of a beach and the Atlantic Ocean near Lege-Cap-Ferret, southwestern France, on July 24, 2026. —Romain Perrocheau––AFP/Getty Images
Fire clouds are expected to become more common
Pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus remain relatively rare, although fire clouds were observed during Australia's 2019-20 bushfires and during California's 2020 wildfire season.
"You need stormy conditions, and then you need fire. We are going to have more stormy conditions, and we are going to have more fire. So the probability of having both together, at the same place and at the same time, is higher," he says.
"You have more energy in the atmosphere with climate change, you have more water vapor in the atmosphere because the sun is evaporating more water from the oceans," Filippi says. "So more water and vapor means more latent energy. That is just one thing to be released. That's why you have more rain too, and more floods, so the potential of storms is higher."
In France, the government earlier this year launched an initiative to expand mandatory vegetation-clearance rules in an effort to reduce the intensity and spread of fires around buildings.
Signifying the growing concern across western Europe, the U.K. government also strengthened its wildfire resilience heading into the warmer months.
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