Europe wildfires: ‘Difficult hours lie ahead’ in battle to contain fires, says Pedro Sánchez as more than 300,000 flee homes in France and Spain

Fires displace people on massive scale and trigger one of the largest peacetime civilian evacuation operations ever carried out in France

• More than 250,000 people flee wildfires in France and Spain

As my colleagues note in this story, scientists say climate breakdown is triggering more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.

Spain's environment ministry has said that 32 major forest fires have been recorded so far this year, compared with seven over the same period in 2025.