More than 300,000 displaced in France and Spain as exhausted firefighters battle wildfires

Fire crews in France and Spain continued to battle raging wildfires that have forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 people in the two countries. Authorities in France's Gironde region, where the wine region city of Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities as shifting winds and arid conditions complicated the massive effort to limit the spread of the monster blaze. The evacuation operation now ranks among the biggest seen since World War II, authorities said, with more than 250,000 people ordered out of the danger zone in one region alone. The situation remains very unfavorable for fires across France, the country's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez posted on X Sunday. The fire again became extremely virulent and unpredictable, generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area, Nunez posted on X. It became calmer by the end of the night. The area that has burned, much of it pine forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heat waves this year, has grown inexorably, expanding by Sunday morning to an estimated 162 square miles, the Gironde prefecture said. That is seven times the area of Manhattan island and four times the size of Paris. Firefighters are battling to slow the flames progression toward Bordeaux. Soldiers have been called in to reinforce fire crews. Meanwhile in neighboring Spain, more villages in the fire zone raging west of Madrid were emptied overnight and a new front opened near the coastal city of Valencia. The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish, Valencia's regional president, Juanfran Perez Llorca, told reporters late Saturday. In total, uncontrolled blazes in Spain this week have forced 116,000 people out of their homes. A wildfire in a bushy ravine in Manises, a suburb of Valencia, that raged out of control for four hours killed one man on Saturday, the local government said, marking Spain's first recorded death in the latest fires.