Thousands flee wildfires in Europe

LEGE-CAP-FERRET, France, July 24 (Agencies): French authorities have ordered the evacuation of the entirety of the Cap Ferret peninsula on the south-west coast, with hundreds of people escaping the area by boat.
Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from the tourism destination west of Bordeaux, as firefighters continue to battle what the local prefect has described as an "XXL fire" in the Gironde region.
The fires, which began on Tuesday, have burned for days, with officials saying 10,000 hectares (almost 25,000 acres) had been consumed by the flames.
Meanwhile, the government in Spain has declared a national emergency as wildfires burn out of control in several areas close to the capital Madrid.
Responding to the spread of fires, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the community of Madrid, said it was: "The worst fire in the history of the region."
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez spoke of a "dramatic situation" and urged people to take great care. Three fires were burning west of Madrid, at Villa del Prado and San Martín de Valdeiglesias.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 40,000 people had either been or were in the process of being evacuated from the Cap Ferret peninsula, which has the Atlantic on one side and the Bay of Arcachon on the other.
Local prefect Sophie Brocas said 53 homes had been lost as well as a campsite, but that 2,000 houses had been saved.
A local councillor said 2,000 evacuees from the peninsula had already arrived by boat in the port of Arcachon on the south side of the bay.
Meanwhile, luggage-clad residents and tourists fled a French peninsula by boat and the smell of smoke drifted into parts of Madrid on Friday as wildfires swept through parts of western Europe, triggering states of emergencies and calls for EU help.
In France, fires raging near the country's prized wine country of Bordeaux forced hundreds of people to flee the Cap Ferret peninsula in the middle of the summer vacation season as the blaze devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan.
In Spain, two separate blazes were raging out of control within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of Madrid, with some residents of the Spanish capital waking up to the smell of smoke, according to residents.
"The gendarmes came and knocked on every door, the fire was about 500 metres away-we grabbed some things and left," Patrick Martineau, a 69-year-old resident of Le Porge, south of Bordeaux, said.
Three firefighters have been killed as southern Europe endures more severe heat, with temperatures topping 40C in some areas.
The total area of land burnt so far this year in EU countries is the second largest on record, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
French authorities have ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast out of campsites and holiday homes, as firefighters backed by water-bombing planes raced to control the blazes.
More than 23,000 people have been evacuated in the region so far. France has invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to ask for help, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, warning that the crisis remained "very intense".
The EU said it would provide three water-bombing planes to France.
In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the situation "dramatic".
"Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday," the Madrid regional government said in a post on X.
France's southeast was also being hard hit, with dozens of fires flaring up and being fanned by the mistral wind around the historic village of Cotignac -- officials saying around 25 houses had been destroyed since Tuesday.