'Out of control' wildfires force Brit tourists to flee hotels in middle of the night as 200,000 evacuated
British tourists in France and Spain are among those caught up in mass evacuations as wildfires continue to burn.
Authorities are mobilising a mass response to the wildfires which have so far seen around 280,000 people evacuated from affected area, the BBC has reported.
But despite an enormous response, locals officials in Spain are now warning that wildfires burning near Madrid may be 'beyond the capacity' of emergency services 'to extinguish it'.
Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez has also issued a statement on the fires, saying: "Our priority, our thinking, our aim is for your lives, to save your lives and protect inhabited areas.
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"We are going to have some complex hours ahead because although the temperatures have gone down, we do not know exactly how the wind will develop, how strong it will be.”
Meanwhile in France the military has been deployed as thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate the southern French city of Bordeaux.
It was at a hotel near to Bordeaux Airport that UK holidaymakers who had travelled to France were reportedly woken at around 3.30am and informed that the hotel would need to close due to the danger from the approaching smoke.
Terrifying images show enormous columns of smoke billowing into the sky.
Martin and Nicola Smith from Jersey were among those affected, having gone on holiday with their daughter Erin, 20, granddaughter Arabella, two, and other family.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Nicola, 49, said: “We were all fast asleep when a member of hotel staff knocked on the door about 3.30am and said that we were having to evacuate.
“It was a shock to the system and quite dramatic but I’d been getting alerts on my phone all night by the local French authorities warning about other areas nearby being evacuated.”
Martin, 55, said: “It’s not great to be honest but what can you do?
“Apparently everywhere is being evacuated because of all the smoke drifting across to Bordeaux from the fire.
“I must admit you could really smell the smoke when we first arrived, there was a kind of haze in the air.”
In Spain, local emergency management chief Carlos Novillo told the BBC that firefighters near Madrid were now having to take 'defensive measures' due to the scale and intensity of the fire.
“It is not possible to attack the fire in that area, so defensive measures are being taken," he said.
French prime minister Sebastien Lecornu has also said the fires are at an unprecedented level, saying: “The fires which are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before."
The French interior minister Laurent Nuñez has also said that 32 wildfires are burning in France which have so far devastated 50,000 hectares of land this year, four times the amount affected at the same time last year.
The fires have come after Europe was hit by another summer of intense heatwaves.
Extremely hot weather increases the risk of wildfires erupting as the ground becomes very dry, with landscapes such as grass and moorlands becoming extremely vulnerable to ignition as a result.
Topics: World News, Weather, Travel
Kit Roberts