France issues heat warnings in wildfire-hit areas, as at least 63,000 evacuated near Madrid

• Extreme conditions: Temperatures will soar in France and Spain this week with no rain forecast to relieve the conditions fueling wildfires in the hardest hit regions of both countries. French authorities have warned of an “intense” heat wave will peak tomorrow, and Spain’s will last until Sunday. CNN is tracking the spread of the fires, and the scale of the devastation compared to prior years.

• In France: The heat is likely to make already dangerous fire conditions much worse and face masks have been issued in areas affected by air pollution. The fire in the southwest Gironde region remained stable overnight, local authorities said, as military engineers battle flames alongside firefighters.

• In Spain: The wildfires ravaging an area just west of Madrid are “improving little by little,” local authorities say. More than 63,000 people have been evacuated from their homes near the Spanish capital. In eastern Spain, ordnance left over from the country’s civil war almost a century ago poses an additional threat.

As wildfires rage in Spain and France, authorities have deployed planes and helicopters to help fight the flames.

Helicopters like the Blackhawks from the Czech Republic seen scooping water west of Bordeaux yesterday, use a bucket suspended by a cable controlled from the cockpit.

Pilots hover over a water source, lower the bucket to fill it, then fly to the fire and release the water, usually directed by crews on the ground. A Blackhawk’s bucket typically holds 600 to 700 gallons of water, according to the US-based United Aerial Firefighters Association (UAFA) – and has been historically used to fight wildfires in places like California. Other types of helicopters used in Europe can carry about 2,600 gallons.

Helicopters can use lakes, rivers, reservoirs or large ponds – bodies of water deep enough, and with enough surface area to allow the aircraft to safely hover and dip the bucket. But helicopters are limited in how fast they can travel when carrying water, which is why finding nearby water sources is important.

Water scooper aircraft are also used to fight wildfires. They’re amphibious planes that fly close to the surface of the water – typically lakes or reservoirs, but sometimes rivers - scooping up water as they skim across. They can carry 700 to 1,600 gallons per load and need large bodies of water – at least 5 feet deep, UAFA says.

“Typically with scoopers you want to be within 20 minutes of the fire,” says UAFA Executive Director Paul Peterson.

Water-dropping aircraft are just part of the aerial response. Fixed-wing airtankers carry thousands of gallons of fire retardant – a usually bright-colored substance that coats vegetation and slows the spread of flames, or water mixed with chemical enhancers. These aircraft are typically loaded at airports or airbases before carrying out their mission.

But key to all these operations is safety. Aircraft need clear, unobstructed access to water sources, which means the public – especially boaters and swimmers - should stay away during operations, or move away quickly if they see such an aircraft approaching.

At the Château Smith Haut Lafitte outside of Bordeaux, France, winery staff are preparing for the unprecedented as a wildfire rages nearby.

“It’s an experience we’ve never underwent before,” Ludovic Fradin, the deputy managing director of the winery, told CNN’s Paula Newton.

Fradin said that the winery – which includes a five-star hotel – hasn’t received instructions to evacuate the premises just yet, but staff are preparing for the worst.

“We are on hold,” Fradin said. “It’s quite a scary and anxious situation, but we are ready to move if it is necessary and to try to save people and animals.”

Fradin said that the Château Smith Haut Lafitte has developed a plan in case staff need to move their livestock, which includes cows and llamas. In the meantime, the winery is providing firefighters with pastries and water.

The fire’s proximity to France’s famous vineyards near Bordeaux has caused alarm throughout the wine-loving world. Château Smith Haut Lafitte produces some of the most highly regarded - and expensive - wines.

Forest fires often cause ripe grapes to take on a bitter taste from smoke, an issue known as “smoke taint” in the wine industry. On Saturday, wine expert Nicolle Croft said that she’d received many calls from anxious observers about possible harms to the 2026 vintage.

However, Croft told CNN that the grapes around Bordeaux aren’t yet ripe enough to be harmed by smoke. “The grapes are like very hard, small peas,” she said. “They aren’t absorbing any aromas.”

However, if the fires continue for longer, the smoke may become a problem. Dr. Phil Crews, a winemaker and chemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told CNN on Saturday that as grapes ripen, their sugars could bind with phenols in smoke. The resulting taint is “ashy, foul tasting and smelling,” Crews said.

“If the wind is blowing in the direction of the vineyard, then there’s going to be a problem,” said Crews.

About 24,000 of the 63,000 people who had been evacuated amid the wildfires in Spain have been allowed to return home, according to Francisco Martín, the Spanish Government Delegate in the Madrid region. Lockdown restrictions were eased on another 20,000 people in the region.

“Right now, we are in the process of bringing the wildfire under control,” Martín said. “We are moving closer to containing it, as its perimeter has not advanced for some time.”

Earlier in the day, officials said wildfires raging just west of Madrid were slowly improving, leading to authorities feeling more optimistic. However, about 6,000 hectares (23 square miles) burnt overnight in the greater Madrid area, taking the total area scorched to about 131 square miles, according to Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid.

Hundreds of thousands of people across France and Spain have been evacuated from their homes in recent days, as wildfires across the countries have continued to blaze.

Around 220,000 people have been evacuated in the French department of Gironde, authorities said earlier in the week.

Another 36,000 people were evacuated from the region of Landes, with roughly 3,000 people instructed to leave their homes in the region of Var, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday.

More have been evacuated since then - roughly 4,000 people have been told to leave the popular tourist area of Lacanau in Gironde today, according to the French public broadcaster Franceinfo. This may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation, Nuñez said.

But 60,000 people from three towns in Gironde - just a few miles from Bordeaux city limits - will be allowed to return home.

In Gironde, roughly 42,000 hectares of land had been burned by Sunday, according to Nuñez. Around 3,600 hectares had also been burned in Landes, he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that “the situation we are dealing with today is the most severe we have ever recorded, the toughest since the Second World War.”

“More than 160,000 hectares have already burned, and the season is far from over,” he said.

Only three out of 45 areas across France are experiencing “average” air quality, according to Atmo France, a network of air quality monitoring associations.

In Spain, at least 63,152 people have been forced to evacuate their homes in the country’s central regions of Madrid, Toledo and Avila, the Spanish interior ministry said yesterday. But today, at least 24,000 people were allowed to return, authorities said.

The total area scorched in the Madrid region alone is around 34,000 hectares, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid, said this morning. The Burgohondo wildfire - the largest ever recorded in Spain - has scorched more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) in Spain’s southern Ávila province.

CNN’s Issy Ronald, Pierre P Bairin, Pau Mosquera, Joseph Ataman and Hira Humayun contributed to this reporing.

Aid group French Popular Relief has received generous donations of relief items at their centers – so much so that they have had to turn some people’s gifts away.

“There is too much generosity with material things,” Lise Toussaint, national bureau member of the group told CNN’s Max Foster.

“We have more than everything we need,” she said of relief supplies. Now, she said, they need financial assistance to help those affected rebuild their lives and move forward once the fires are put out.

There are people who lost their homes, their belongings, and their means of transportation, affecting their ability to work.

“We have to help them rebuild a new life,” she said.

Toussaint said many people had to evacuate with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Particularly heartbreaking, she said, was seeing the elderly people who had to evacuate, leaving behind a home full of decades of memories and family souvenirs.

“All their life is burned, not just their houses,” she said. “It’s more than walls.”

Some residents of three fire-affected towns near Bordeaux were given the all-clear to return home, according to an announcement from the Prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde.

60,000 people from Eysines, Mérignac and Le Haillan will be able to return home. The towns are only a few miles from the city limits of Bordeaux. Twenty other villages and towns nearby remain under evacuation orders.

The smell of burned wood is strong and unrelenting. It’s hardly surprising: the forests south of the town of Cebreros, in Spain’s Ávila province, have been left completely devastated.

The Burgohondo wildfire — the largest ever recorded in Spain after scorching more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) — has burned everything in its path across southern Ávila province.

The fire remains out of control, although firefighters are racing against the clock to contain it. Conditions could become even more challenging tomorrow, as Spain braces for the fourth heat wave of the summer.

The town’s 3,300 residents have been under lockdown since the end of last week because of the fire’s proximity.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before. It looks like a war zone,” Kepa, a native of San Sebastián who has lived in the town for 19 years, tells CNN.

He speaks from inside his small restaurant in the town center, which was finally able to reopen today after authorities ordered it to remain closed during the days of lockdown.

He says that while the area is accustomed to sporadic wildfires during the summer, he has never witnessed anything on this scale.

Sitting beside him, Vanesa says she does not know whether she will be able to return home. She lives in the neighboring town of El Tiemblo, about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) to the south. It is another of the communities placed under lockdown by authorities.

“I just hope this ends as soon as possible,” she says.

As France’s southwest region braces for temperatures that could exceed 100 Fahrenheit on Wednesday, firefighters and first responders continue to battle wildfires that have already left more than 200,000 people displaced.

Travelling alongside officials from the Gironde Fire Department, our team witnessed the scale of the disaster wrought by the fires: miles of forest land charred and blackened, smoke seeping from the scorched earth beneath, and homes completely destroyed.

An area typically full of holidaymakers at this time of year, has instead become a ghost town. While many fires in this immediate region have now been contained, officials tell us some are already rekindling, with temperatures only set to intensify this week.

Fire trucks line the long and winding roads into the heart of the disaster zone, as aerial water-bombers fly overhead. But there are also local volunteers who have stayed behind, organizing to support first responders, and using whatever means they have to put out flames in the hope of saving their community.

As wildfires continue to ravage areas across France, authorities are warning residents across most of the country to be cautious of poor air quality, and are urging people to stay indoors if possible.

Only three out of 45 areas across France are currently experiencing “average” air quality, according to Atmo France, a network of air quality monitoring associations in the country. Ten areas are experiencing “bad” air quality, it says.

Tomorrow, air pollution is forecast to be even worse, with only one city - Brest in northwestern France - currently predicted to have “average” air quality, according to Atmo France. At least 24 of the 45 areas are expected to experience “bad” air quality, it says.

The department of Hérault in southern France - which includes Montpellier - warned people on Sunday about an episode of “atmospheric pollution” because of the wildfires, suggesting that people limit any “intense activities” outside.

Yesterday, the department of Lozère, also in southern France, described an “episode of pollution” caused by “fine particles in the atmosphere.” It also suggested that people avoid or reduce intense physical activity, both indoors and outdoors.

Richard Pope, an atmospheric scientist, told CNN yesterday that the air pollution in Bordeaux has spiked to six times the levels described as safe by the World Health Organization.

CNN’s Joseph Ataman and Billy Stockwell contributed to this reporting.

A photo taken by climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf on a family vacation shows a child playing on a French beach against a dystopian background of orange skies and thick plumes of smoke.

Rahmstorf, a professor at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, was in Lacanau, in the Gironde region, last week, about 12 miles from where France’s huge blaze started last Wednesday.

He first noticed a plume of smoke rising over the land on Wednesday, while he was surfing in the ocean. Then on Friday, “the wind changed (direction) and the smoke was blown over Lacanau, which is when the eerie orange photos were taken,” he said.

He and his family decided to leave that evening, fleeing to Bordeaux. But even in the city, “the air was not clear and smelled of burning wood,” he told CNN.

Despite the visceral scenes and the curtailed vacation, Rahmstorf says the scale and ferocity of the wildfires does not surprise him. “I have been well aware for decades that such disasters would increasingly become our reality.”

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