Wildfires could engulf “all of Europe” within days, the head of the EU’s Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre warned on Thursday.
Large fires are burning in countries including France, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Germany, with more on the horizon amid extreme heat conditions. Maria Zuber, who is leading the EU response to the blazes, said the risk was “moving to Greece and also central Europe”.
“Italy will face risk at the beginning of August, and we will need to see what will happen with the Iberian Peninsula, because if [it is] there as well, we will have all Europe on fire,” said Zuber, the head of the EU’s Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre.
Even as vast fires are contained in France’s Bordeaux region and on the border between Madrid and Castilla y León in Spain, new blazes are igniting thanks to tinder-dry conditions and a string of intense heatwaves in the world’s fastest warming continent.
An advancing wildfire in Zamora province of Spain (Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters)Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that at least 10 fires were causing concern across the country, with the blaze outside of Madrid having burned an area more than twice as large as the city itself.
Spanish authorities warned that the heatwave threatens a resurgence of fire in areas west of Madrid, where more than 25,000 hectares (61,776 acres) have already gone up in smoke.
More than 300,000 people have now been forced to evacuate their homes in Spain, Portugal and France, which is set to reach highs of 41-42°C. Wildfires in France have now burned more land than in any year since 2006.
Actor George Clooney wrote to his local mayor that his family had evacuated his home in a south-eastern French town because of a nearby wildfire.
At least 10 fires were causing concern across Spain, the country’s Prime Minister has warned (Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters)He said that “we have no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment”, in a letter the Hollywood star’s publicist shared with the Associated Press.
Regional health authorities advised evacuees returning to their homes in France to wear gloves and face masks as they clean up and wash children’s toys and pets’ feeding bowls and paws.
Returnees to Bordeaux suburbs were told to keep phones on and pack bags in case they have to be evacuated again.
France’s public health agency reported that call-out doctors and hospital emergency wards in Bordeaux had seen a spike in cases involving asthma sufferers last weekend because of the wildfires choking smoke clouds.
Gironde authorities said 420 sq km (about 162 sq miles) had been affected by the blaze – an area four times that of Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron has called the “completely unprecedented” wildfire the “toughest since World War Two”.
Police water cannons used for riot control are now being employed to help extinguish embers and flare-ups, involving 3,300 firefighters and a fleet of two dozen planes and helicopters dumping water and retardants, French interior minister Laurent Nuñez said.
Luxembourg, Slovakia, Latvia, Germany and Serbia are all sending fire crews, planes, helicopters and other assistance to add to that already provided by other countries, with Ukraine also offering help, Nuñez said.
A resident sprays water on grass to try and stop an advancing wildfire near Formariz in Zamora, Spain (Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters)Meanwhile, crews are ripping up trees and bushes with diggers to create land barriers between forests, after France’s fourth heatwave of the year gave way on Thursday to cooler weather.
Around 8,000 residents and tourists have been evacuated from Greece’s popular tourist island of Crete, with many fleeing by boat, after three firefighters died tackling blazes in Greece.
High winds pushed the fire out of control near popular holiday spots around Krya Vrysi, on the southern side of Crete, where many spent the night on camp beds set up in a gym.
“It was frightening. We could see the flames in the hills above the village, and the police and firefighters were just telling people to leave right away,” British holidaymaker Peter Wood, who was staying at the southern village of Agia Galini, told Reuters.
Firefighters tackle a blaze near Blagon, in south-western France on Wednesday (Photo: Emma Da Silva/AP)Lia Galata, a Greek seasonal tourism worker in Crete who evacuated by boat, said: “We barely made it… we were running and the fire was behind us, chasing us.
“I didn’t know if I was going to die from the fire or the ash, or from drowning in the sea. It was insane.”
“Very extreme conditions dominate a large area of western and central Europe, with the heaviest concentration across France and the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, along with the British Isles and Ireland,” the European Commission has warned.
Its fire danger forecast puts the entirety of southern England and much of northern England at “very extreme risk” of fires over the coming days. Firefighters are racing to extinguish the blazes, dropping flame retardant from the skies and pouring thousands of litres of water collected from the sea.
A herd of goats on the scorched ground of a farm damaged by a wildfire near Pelayos de la Presa, 65km west of Madrid, on Thursday (Photo: Oscar Del Pozo/AFP)In Suffolk, a major incident has been declared after a large wildfire broke out on heathland, just four miles from a nuclear plant. Homes and a caravan park have been evacuated with 90 firefighters tackling the blaze at its peak, according to Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service.
A drought has been declared across half of England, with public have been urged to take shorter showers to ration dwindling water supplies. A hosepipe ban has also been imposed on much of the UK.
Thursday’s temperatures showed Europe was the continent furthest from its historic norm, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor – with an average high of 25.3°C forecast, 3.6°C above the norm from 1961 to 1990.
A relatively wet winter and ensuing heatwaves have supported growth in forests and scrubland, creating fuel for fires. It has led to an above-average season for wildfires in EU countries, already surpassing 2025’s record-breaking year.
In total, 434,976 hectares of land have burnt across Europe since the start of this year, according to data from the European Commission, with 1,407 fires detected – more than double the long-term average of 632.
The blazes have caused devastating environmental damage and emitted 17.98 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Romania has had to shut down both reactors at its Cernavoda nuclear power plant due to low water levels in the Danube River used to cool them.
In 2022, a wildfire destroyed 18 village homes in east London on the hottest day ever recorded in the UK, when temperatures hit 40.3°C.
Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, as a major incident has been declared due to a large heathland blaze on the Suffolk coast (Photo: Joe Giddens/PA)Hence then, the article about all europe on fire pictures show extreme threat to spain france and greece was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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