Extract from ABC News
Alongside fire brigades, France has deployed military personnel to help with the emergency response. (AP: Emma Da Silva)
In short:
Three people have died and more than 250,000 people across France and Spain have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires tear across Europe.
Spain declared its first ever civil national emergency, while the French Prime Minister says the fires are a level "never before seen"
What's next?
Aerial assets from across Europe have been sent to Spain to aid overwhelmed brigades, while France deploys military personnel to help locally.
Three people have died and more than 250,000 people across France and Spain have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires tear across Europe.
The entire Cap Ferret peninsula, regions near Bordeaux and the town of Biscarosse in the south of France have been evacuated after several large wildfires began burning as early as Thursday.
Meanwhile in Spain, the government has declared a national emergency as fires encroach on the capital Madrid, home to about 6.8 million people.
Firefighters die on duty
French officials confirmed two firefighters died while battling a blaze near the Bordeaux airport in south-west France.
On Saturday, the Spanish Interior Ministry confirmed a man had been found dead in his car located in a ravine in Manises, Valencia.
Firefighters spray water in a burning forest in the Cap Ferret region, near Bordeaux. (AP Photo: Caroline Blumberg)
France fires 'never before seen'
On Saturday, France was preparing to use a specially adapted cargo aircraft to dump fire retardants on a wildfire that had forced the evacuation of suburbs close to the wine region of Bordeaux.
The Airbus A400M making its first drop over the wildfire near Lacanau in France. (Reuters pool: Abdul Saboor)
So far, about 197,000 people have been left the Gironde and Landes regions close to Bordeaux.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the fire was around 30 kilometres from Bordeaux, and was likely the biggest peacetime evacuation the country has seen.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze became so strong on Friday it had begun generating its own winds.
"Our priority is clear: protecting human lives," Mr Lecornu said in a post on social media, adding evacuation orders "must be respected without delay".
Evacuated residents rest at the Bordeaux-Lac Exhibition Centre, which has been turned into a shelter for displaced evacuees. (Reuters: Manon Cruz)
"The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before."
Gironde region prefect Sophie Brocas said strong winds from the west were pushing the fire closer to the Bordeaux metropolitan area, previously ordering people in Cap Ferret to evacuate via boat due to the speed and unpredictability at which the fire was moving.
French authorities said dozens of firefighters had been injured since the wildfires began, and armed forces had been drafted in to help overwhelmed brigades.
Soldiers were instructed to distribute 1.5 million face masks in the region, to prevent smoke inhalation.
Spain's first civil national emergency
Two wildfires near Madrid merged on Friday, with authorities believing they could merge again with a fire in the neighbouring Avila province.
During a visit to the fire zone, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the priority was "to save lives".
The Spanish government declared the fires a national emergency on Friday, with roughly 70,000 people forced to flee from villages west of Madrid.
It is the first time Spain has declared a civil-protection national emergency, whereas constitutional national emergencies have been declared four times since Spain's current constitution came in force in 1978.
Spain's Civil Protection Service said it was expecting four aerial assets to arrive on Saturday, two from Italy and two from Greece, accompanying Dutch and Portuguese assets that had already been sent as part of a European Union response.
Impact felt by locals
Esteban Carrasco, owner of the Monasterio de Pelayos campsite west of Madrid, told national broadcaster TVE about 30 mobile homes burned down when the fire reached the site on Friday.
Mr Carrasco said about 200 campers from "humble backgrounds" had to evacuate.
"It was a horrific disaster," he said as he showed how mobile homes on one side of a road were destroyed while on the other side they escaped untouched.
Locals have been hit hard by a wildfire in Le Porge. (Reuters: Stephane Mahe)
Jacqueline Villafranca, a 38-year-old mother who evacuated to Madrid on Friday with her husband and their two daughters, said smoke had filled her village of Navalagamella.
"I thought everything was going to burn, the house and everything," Ms Villafranca said, sitting in a gymnasium-turned-shelter.
"Here you can breathe normally, yesterday it was unbearable."
ABC/wires
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