French firefighters are battling a blaze of unprecedented scale sweeping through Fontainebleau forest, about 40 miles south-east of Paris, while in southern Spain the prime minister visited the scene of a deadly wildfire and warned that the climate emergency kills.
Fontainebleau fire: exceptional scale and proximity to Paris
The fire in Fontainebleau, a one-time royal hunting preserve dotted with villages, began late on Sunday afternoon. The blaze, unusual in its proximity to Paris, raced across about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of forest. By Monday afternoon it had not been contained and continued to progress moderately, said Pierre Ory, the prefect of Seine-et-Marne department. The Paris region remains under the highest heatwave alert.
The mayor of Fontainebleau, Julien Gondard, expressed shock and anger. “This exceptional area is consumed by flames, we’ve never seen anything like this,” he told local TV station ICI Paris Île-de-France. “The forest is fragile and it’s in a critical condition.” Fire officials said it could take several days to several weeks to fully contain the fire, describing it as “very virulent” and of “exceptional scale”.
Evacuations and investigation into cause
Interior minister Laurent Nuñez, visiting an operations room in Fontainebleau on Monday, said about 900 homes had been evacuated, no home had yet been burned and no one had been injured. He said an investigation was under way to determine the cause. “The fire began at several points at the end of yesterday afternoon – around 10 points, which would suggest it could have been voluntary in origin. I won’t say more because an investigation is ongoing,” he said.
Nuñez added that forest fires had burned 32,000 hectares of land in France so far this year, “already more than the 2025 season and it’s only 13 July”. He noted that since the start of the summer, 44 people had been arrested across the country on suspicion of being responsible for the outbreak of fires.
Transport disruption and firefighting response
High-speed rail was affected after the fire broke out on Sunday because key lines pass near the forest. The French rail company SNCF reported delays of up to eight hours for trains arriving at or leaving from Gare de Lyon in Paris. By Monday morning, rail services were returning to normal. Half of the 700 residents of the village of Le Vaudoué were evacuated, and firefighters operated in several other towns.
About 400 firefighters worked to contain the fire, which erupted two days before the 14 July Bastille Day national holiday. Eric Brocardi, a spokesperson for France’s national federation of firefighters, said it was the first time firefighting planes had been sent up from the normally drier and hotter south of the country to extinguish fires in the Paris region. Two firefighting helicopters and an observation aircraft also helped tackle the blaze. “The aim is to save lives and property,” he said.
Spain's deadly wildfire and climate warning
In Spain, where 13 people were killed by last week’s deadly wildfire in the south-eastern region of Almería, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez renewed calls for joint national action to address the effects of the climate emergency. “A third of all the land that burned in Europe last year was here in Spain,” he said during a visit to the affected area on Monday morning. “That’s not just down to the fires that have traditionally happened; it’s also due to a worsening because of climate change that’s happening across the Iberian peninsula and especially in Spain.”
Sánchez repeated his calls for a “state pact” to tackle the changing climate. “It’s not just about reacting when these fires hit; it’s also about preventing them, building perimeters, and about teaching people how to react when a fire – or any of the civil emergencies that are unfortunately becoming more common – hits.” He added: “I’ve said it many times before, but the climate emergency kills. We’re seeing that across Europe and we’re seeing that in Spain.”
El Pais reported on Monday that six victims of the Almería fire had so far been identified: three Britons and one person each from France, Belgium and Spain. Experts coordinating identification work said these were the first six victims identified out of 12 bodies found in the fire zone. The wildfire was said to have been brought under control on Sunday.
Climate change and extreme weather link
The June heatwaves that hit Europe would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to the World Weather Attribution group of scientists. Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters such as heatwaves and wildfires.
