Sawt Falasteen - Thousands flee wildfires in southern Europe

In France, fires raging near the country's prized wine country of Bordeaux forced hundreds of people to flee the Cap Ferret peninsula in the middle of the summer vacation season as the blaze devoured an area nearly twice the size of Manhattan.

In Spain, two separate blazes were raging out of control within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of Madrid, with some residents of the Spanish capital waking up to the smell of smoke, according to residents.

"The gendarmes came and knocked on every door, the fire was about 500 metres away -- we grabbed some things and left," Patrick Martineau, a 69-year-old resident of Le Porge, south of Bordeaux, said.

Three firefighters have been killed as southern Europe endures more severe heat, with temperatures topping 40C in some areas.

The total area of land burnt so far this year in EU countries is the second largest on record, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

French authorities have ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast out of campsites and holiday homes, as firefighters backed by water-bombing planes raced to control the blazes.

More than 23,000 people have been evacuated in the region so far.

France has invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to ask for help, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, warning that the crisis remained "very intense".

The EU said it would provide three water-bombing planes to France.

In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the situation "dramatic".

"Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday," the Madrid regional government said in a post on X.

France's southeast was also being hard hit, with dozens of fires flaring up and being fanned by the mistral wind around the historic village of Cotignac -- officials saying around 25 houses had been destroyed since Tuesday.

In Italy, thousands of emergency workers battled scores of fires in Sicily and in the Calabria region, where a local official said arsonists had started fires by tying rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of stray cats to spread the flames.

One firefighter died after falling ill while battling the flames in Sicily, the interior minister said.

Two firefighters died on Tuesday tackling another blaze near Bordeaux airport.

- 'No chance' -

Skies over Le Porge turned orange as smoke rose from charred and crackling pine trees, while helicopters made repeated runs over deserted neighbourhoods.

Fires in 2022 damaged a massive area of the same forest, forcing around 50,000 people to flee.

In Spain, hundreds of firefighters and troops were still struggling to contain a huge wildfire in Guadalajara province, north of Madrid and a smaller fire near the city of Toledo, which forced the evacuation of several villages.

"Climate change is what kills, what destroys our villages and our natural and cultural heritage," civil protection chief Virginia Barcones told Spanish radio.

She warned some fires become so intense that, despite the deployment of aircraft and ground crews, firefighters stand "no chance".

burs/yad/st

Y.Zaher--SF-PST