Fires in Europe: latest developments

Here are the main developments related to the wildfires raging in Spain and France on Sunday:

Macron calls cabinet meeting

French President Emmanuel Macron will chair a crisis cabinet meeting Monday morning to discuss the wildfires ravaging several areas of southwest France, his office said on Sunday.

Fire cloud

The gigantic wildfire ravaging southwest France has created a dangerous "pyrocumulonimbus" cloud -- a phenomenon never before seen in the country -- the spokesman for the country's National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF) told AFP.

Such a formation, also called a cumulonimbus flammagenitus, can be seen during volcanic eruptions -- or, as in this case, when a wildfire roasts the air near the ground, causing it to rise quickly. The rising air cools and becomes a "fire cloud": a turbulent mass that can generate its own winds that worsen fires.

No quick return

The 220,000 people evacuated due to the massive wildfire in France's Gironde region will not be able to return home "until the fire has been brought under control", the local prefect said on Sunday, also ruling out any normal workday on Monday in the affected towns, ahead of a possible worsening of the situation on Tuesday due to an expected rise in temperatures.

"I urge tourists not to come, not to travel to the Gironde," added Sophie Brocas, advising them to "consider other destinations."

Italy sea evacuations

More than 400 people in Italy were evacuated by sea on Sunday as a wildfire swept through parts of the southern Adriatic coast, with several hundred more expected to be rescued, the coastguard said.

Spain's largest fire

The wildfires ravaging areas around Spain's capital Madrid have included the largest forest fire in the country's recent history, Sara Aagesen, Minister for Ecological Transition, told journalists.

She said the blazes have "affected" 77,000 hectares in the Madrid, Avila and Toledo regions, with the largest area around Avila.

'Incalculable' damage

Spain's King Felipe VI, visiting a shelter for evacuees, said the wildfires ravaging the countryside around Madrid and other areas had caused "incalculable" damage to the nation's natural heritage.

Earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking on a trip to the fire zone west of Madrid, said "difficult hours lie ahead". He added, however, that there were "positive" indications towards containing the blaze.

Coach visits evacuees

The manager of the Spanish national football team, Luis de la Fuente -- winner of the 2026 World Cup -- visited on Sunday people who had been evacuated due to the wildfires that have ravaged the Madrid region in recent days.

Bordeaux 'vigilant'

With France's major wildfire burning very close to Bordeaux, the city's mayor said officials were "vigilant" but no evacuation was planned.

"The fire is further south," he told reporters at a shelter for people displaced in surrounding areas.

Pope's prayers

Pope Leo IV, in his Sunday prayers, expressed solidarity with all those affected by the "devastating" fires and called on people to pray for them and for first responders.

Spain dealing with 'monster'

Spain is fighting a fiery "monster" that has created a "massive emergency", the head of Spain's civil protection service, Virginia Barcones, told state broadcaster TVE.

"Across this national wildfire crisis, we are dealing with a perimeter of 280 kilometres encompassing 77,000 hectares (19,000 acres)," she said.

'Unpredictable' blaze in France

France's interior minister, Laurent Nunez, said a massive wildfire in the southwestern Gironde region, near Bordeaux, "became extremely intense and unpredictable again" overnight.

It was "generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area", he said.

A total of 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss firefighting team, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to Gironde, he said.

Bordeaux wine thief

French police said a patrol in Eysines, a largely evacuated outlying suburb of Bordeaux, had on Saturday arrested a man who allegedly stole 44 bottles of prestige grand cru wine from an empty home.

Roads and rail cut by fires

With high winds spreading flames in the giant Gironde wildfire, 60 kilometres (40 miles) of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border has been closed, regional authorities said.

The SNCF rail company said it had also halted train traffic for about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Bordeaux.

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