The China Mail - 166,000 evacuated as wildfires spin out of control in France, Spain

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday asked the army to mobilise to help contain the worst wildfire the country has ever seen after seeking European Union help, as a local official warned the blaze was heading towards Bordeaux.

Some 44,000 people fled the up-market Cap Ferret peninsula south of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast, with the only road threatened by flames.

Twenty-seven boats moved hundreds of people away from the fires, while others drove off the peninsula, known for its millionaire residences. More than 50 houses there have been destroyed.

At least 141,000 people have been evacuated in southwestern France and 25,000 in the Madrid region, among them more than 1,200 old and disabled people, French and Spanish officials said.

Madrid and Paris have called in European Union help as flames whipped up by strong winds and boosted by drought tore through tinder-dry forests.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France had never before seen this type of fire on this scale and pledged to "do everything" to protect Bordeaux.

- Madrid fire 'at its peak' -

Carlos Novillo, the Madrid regional government's emergency management chief, said the wildfire near the capital was "at its peak and is currently beyond the capacity of firefighters to contain".

Spanish prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will go to the zone on Saturday morning to visit the emergency coordination centre there.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has called a crisis meeting of key ministers.

About 40 of the 1,000 firefighters battling the Cap Ferret blaze have been injured, authorities said. Three firefighters have died in wildfires in France and Italy this week.

Two of the three major wildfires west of Madrid have merged into one, threatening a suburban town, said officials.

Some European regions have suffered at least two heatwaves since May. And drought blamed on human-fuelled climate change has heightened the threat from wildfires this year, the World Weather Attribution group said in a study published this week.

Emergency shelters were set up in schools and gymnasiums in southwestern France for tourists and residents left wondering what they would return to.

In the village of Andernos, Maria Lalanne, a 90-year-old from Lege Cap Ferret, sat on a camp bed in a gym without her glasses or hearing aid, which she'd left behind.

"I have heart disease, high blood pressure and problems with my eyes," she said. "I don't know how long all this will last. I don't know how my house is, whether it has burnt."

- EU help -

Firefighting reinforcements have been sent from across France and, following appeals for assistance, the European Commission said it was sending four water-bombing planes to Spain and three to France.

The fires burning around Madrid are the worst in the region's history, regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso said as she announced more evacuations.

Two fires west of Madrid had merged and were heading for the town of Navas del Rey, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital.

The new blaze was close to combining with another wildfire in neighbouring Castilla y Leon region, officials said.

"The smoke was incredibly thick," Jose Cobos, who fled his home southwest of Madrid with his wife and three dogs, told Antena 3 television. "You couldn't breathe."

Spain has been hit by a series of wildfires in recent weeks.

The largest active fire was still burning in Guadalajara province, around 100 km north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares over the past week.

Italy has also been battling wildfires this week with dozens raging on the island of Sicily in recent days. One of the firefighters victim was killed in Sicily. Two others died tackling a fire near Bordeaux airport.

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