Wildfires force evacuations outside Bordeaux as wind stokes Spanish blazes

Wildfires on the coast of southwestern France moved inland towards Bordeaux on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of thousands in the city's suburbs, while in neighbouring Spain high winds fanned a massive blaze near Madrid.



Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in both countries because of those fires, the latest natural disasters linked to sustained dry spells and successive heatwaves that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change.



"The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before," French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote on X.



So far this July, high temperatures have averaged 32.2 degrees Celsius in the region of France hit by the fires, which is 7.3 degrees Celsius above the month's average high between 1961 and 1990, according to data on Reuters Climate Monitor.