More than 160,000 people evacuated due to severe wildfires ravaging Spain and France

The fierce wildfires ravaging western Madrid, Spain, and southwestern France have forced the evacuation of more than 160,000 people as of Saturday. In the Madrid region, at least 25,000 residents had to flee their homes due to what local authorities are calling the worst fire ever recorded in the area, while in France, the flames are threatening the Bordeaux wine region.

The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, put the total number of people affected—including those evacuated and those under lockdown—at 63,000. On Friday, more than 1,200 elderly and disabled people were urgently evacuated from nursing homes and care centers.

Firefighters tried unsuccessfully to prevent two large fires from merging: one in southwestern Madrid, which has already consumed some 15,000 acres, and another in neighboring Castile and León, with nearly 22,000 acres affected. The regional minister of the environment, Carlos Novillo, warned that the Madrid fire is at its "peak" and has exceeded firefighting capacity. The Civil Guard arrested one person and is investigating another as possible suspects in the fire in Castile and León.

"I'm 53 years old and I've seen major fires, but never one as big as this," Félix Hernández, a city council member from Aldea del Fresno—a municipality that has been completely evacuated—told AFP.

Weather conditions, with strong winds and high temperatures, are hampering the work of emergency crews. One of the fire hotspots even temporarily affected the facilities of the MDSCC, one of the three NASA stations in Spain dedicated to communication with space probes. Meanwhile, a previous fire in Guadalajara, which burned 80,000 acres, is now in the stabilization phase. Since Jan. 1, Spain has lost nearly 321,000 acres to fire.

Bordeaux under threat: New evacuations and injured firefighters

In France, authorities ordered new preventive evacuations on Saturday in towns near Bordeaux. In total, about 141,000 people have been evacuated, and the flames have destroyed 54,000 acres, an area twice the size of Paris. The departments of Gironde and Les Landes have been hardest hit. About 40 of the 1,000 firefighters battling the blaze were injured. On Friday, hundreds of residents and tourists had to evacuate the Cap Ferret peninsula by boat and by road.

This year is shaping up to be the second-worst in terms of area burned in the European Union since satellite records began two decades ago. In France, the more than 50,000 hectares destroyed are three times the amount burned during the same period last year.