Level of wildfires 'never been seen before' - French PM

French authorities evacuated thousands of people from suburbs near Bordeaux today as wildfires ⁠in areas around the city showed no signs of abating.

Sophie Brocas, who heads the local administration of La Nouvelle-Aquitaine et de la Gironde which covers the Bordeaux region, said on X that the areas of Le Haillan, Eysines ‌and Merignac were being ⁠cleared out.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said that more than 141,000 people had so far been evacuated from the Gironde and Landes regions which lie close to Bordeaux, ‌and where the wildfires first broke out this week.

"The fires which ⁠are hitting our country have reached ‌a level that has never been seen before," Mr Lecornu ⁠wrote ‌on X today. The French army has also been drafted in to help.

So far this month, temperatures ⁠have averaged 32.2C in the ⁠Aquitaine region, which is 7.3C above the normal high for July between 1961 to 1990, according to data on Reuters Climate Monitor.

Spain official warns winds could worsen fire

Meanwhile Spanish firefighters are hoping to get control of wildfires raging near Madrid today but an official warned that erratic winds threatened to fan the blazes further.

The fires in the parched countryside have forced 63,000 people to flee their homes or remain indoors, the interior ministry said, in what officials have called the region's worst fire on record.

Thick grey smoke filled the sky west of the capital and the smell of burning reached the streets of central Madrid.

With temperatures dipping, "there is a real opportunity now to tackle this fire with some guarantee of success," the central government's delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martin, told reporters late yesterday.

"The temperature has dropped, the wind has eased and the relative humidity has risen," he said yesterday.

But he warned that today would be "difficult" as "the wind is expected to rise in the morning, with rather erratic gusts".

The Madrid regional government's emergency management chief Carlos Novillo had told reporters earlier yesterday that the fire was "at its peak and... currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain".

Two separate wildfires combined yesterday to become one huge blaze, which was close to merging with yet another in the neighbouring Castilla y Leon region.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was scheduled to attend an emergency planning meeting this morning in Cenicientos, a village at the heart of the fire zone, and speak to the media afterwards.