TEMPO.CO, Paris - Wildfires raged in southwestern France and Spain on Saturday, July 16, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes as blistering summer temperatures put authorities on alert in parts of Europe.
More than 12,200 people had been evacuated from France's Gironde region by Saturday morning as more than 1,000 firefighters battled to bring the flames under control, regional authorities said in a statement.
"We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not stabilized," Vincent Ferrier, deputy prefect for Langon in Gironde, told a news conference.
Wildfires have torn through France in recent weeks, as well as in other European countries including Portugal and Spain, and nearly 10,000 hectares of land were on fire in the Gironde region on Saturday, up from 7,300 hectares on Friday.
In neighboring Spain, firefighters were battling a series of blazes on Saturday after days of unusually high temperatures which reached up to 45.7 degrees Celsius.
The nearly week-long heatwave has caused 360 heat-related deaths, according to figures from the Carlos III Health Institute.
More than 3,000 people have now been evacuated from homes due to a large wildfire near Mijas, a town in the province of Malaga that is popular with northern European tourists, the region's emergency services said in a tweet early on Saturday.
REUTERS
Click here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News
