French President Emmanuel Macron convened an interministerial crisis meeting on Monday morning, July 27th, 2026, as wildfires continued to burn across several parts of France, the Elysee Palace confirmed.

Both France and Spain are battling vast wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes, forced mass evacuations, and generated severe weather conditions. In the southwestern Gironde region, particularly hard hit, fires have destroyed 240 homes since Wednesday. Around 170 properties were damaged in the municipality of Le Porge alone, deputy mayor Jean Lajzerowicz told the AFP news agency.

Authorities have deployed approximately 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel, and 1,200 police officers and gendarmes to combat the fires. However, the CFDT firefighters' union expressed concern that personnel are being sent into dangerous conditions without sufficient protection from carcinogenic smoke and particles. The union called for new filtering hoods to be issued more widely and reported that at least four firefighters required treatment in hyperbaric chambers after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning.

France's national firefighters federation noted that this phenomenon had never previously been recorded in the country.

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure described the wildfires around Bordeaux as a sudden blow to an already struggling region. Officials stated that the fires were "not yet under control," though plans were underway to reopen a campsite from which 4,500 people had been evacuated and to allow some elderly residents to return home in other areas if conditions permitted.

A spokesperson summarized the scale of the fires, saying, "We are dealing with a perimeter of 280 kilometers encompassing 77,000 hectares."

Sources