Wildfires create fire clouds in Europe

Firefighters battle blazes in Europe - 3rd August 2026

Large areas of France and Spain have been destroyed by wildfires which have forced 375,000 local residents and visitors to evacuate. They're caused by a series of heatwaves which have hit western Europe due to the climate crisis.

The Gironde in France has seen flames burn through 42,000 hectares of land. In Spain, wildfires have already destroyed 170,000 hectares, which is 6 times last year's total.

Humans are responsible for 90 percent of wildfires. However, the changing climate's giving them more fuel. Heavier rainfall in Europe over winter allowed plants to develop more. That growth's been dried out by a lack of spring rainfall and the summer's heatwaves.

Long-term data shows that Europe's heating faster than other continents. In the years 2015 to 2025, the average temperature was 0.87 degrees above the average from the 30 years 1991 to 2020. This rise is leading to more floods and wildfires.

In France, firefighters may be putting the wildfires out for months. They're so intense that they've produced pyrocumulonimbus (PyroCb) clouds over the country for the first time.

NASA refers to them as the "fire-breathing dragons of clouds". When a wildfire rises high enough, that air cools in the atmosphere and creates these PyroCb clouds. Lightning and strong winds from them spread the fire.

Wildfires are now burning just 9 kilometres from Bordeaux. Firefighting planes are dropping a special fire retardant to form a barrier.

The situation near Madrid's more positive. Although wildfires are still burning "out of control", firefighters believe that they can extinguish them.