French authorities issued an evacuation order for the entire Cap-Perret peninsula on the southwest coast, and hundreds of people fled the area by boat.
Tens of thousands of people are evacuating. It is a tourist attraction west of Bordeaux where firefighters continue to battle a forest fire that has been burning in the Gironde region for several days.
The fire that started in Saumos on Tuesday continued to burn overnight, with 8,700 hectares (about 21,500 acres) engulfed in flames.
Meanwhile, the Spanish government declared a national emergency as forest fires burned out of control in several areas near the capital Madrid.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called on the public to be extra cautious, citing a “dramatic situation.” Three fires broke out in Villa del Prado and San Martín de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 40,000 people had been evacuated or were in the process of being evacuated from the Cap-Perret peninsula, which has the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Arcachon on the other.
“A total of 80 houses were burned, about 50 of them were completely destroyed,” he told reporters.
The mayor of Arès, located southeast of Lège-Cap Ferret on the Gulf of Arcachon, said his village had also been evacuated. A local lawmaker said 2,000 refugees from the peninsula had already arrived by boat at the port of Arcachon, south of the bay.
