Wildfires sweeping across southern Europe have claimed at least 12 lives in Spain and forced mass evacuations as an intense heatwave fans flames from the Iberian Peninsula to France. In Spain, blazes have killed at least 12 people and consumed 3,200 hectares, while in the Pyrenees roughly 5,000 hectares burned over ten days, displacing 10,000 residents and requiring 850 firefighters. Central Portugal has seen 12,000 hectares destroyed in just three days.
France faces its worst fire season in years, with more than 25,000 hectares already burned nationwide — double the area lost by the same date in 2025. In Maine-et-Loire, a Sunday blaze razed nearly 300 hectares and two homes, mobilising 200 firefighters and water-bombing aircraft. Near Paris, firefighters deployed water-bombing planes for the first time in the Fontainebleau forest, disrupting the A6 motorway and high-speed rail services, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said.
Italian firefighters have joined the response, with personnel deployed near Marseille to assist French crews.