Large forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, forcing authorities to evacuate an estimated 80,000 people from their homes as flames advanced through towns, vacation areas and forested terrain. On France's Atlantic coast, some residents and visitors fled by boat after fire swept through the tourist destination of Cap Ferret.

The blaze near Cap Ferret, which has been burning since Wednesday, has consumed about 100 square kilometers (38 square miles). The peninsula, located around 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux, is known for its landscapes, sandy beaches, oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts. The fires coincide with peak summer travel season, underscoring the strain on communities that rely heavily on tourism revenue.

More than 60,000 residents in France left the affected areas, while both France and Spain requested assistance from other European Union members.

“It's quite impressive and even frightening,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.”

More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The latest evacuations were conducted by road, while boat shuttles were made available for people who could not leave by their own means.

About 1,500 people who fled the peninsula reached the city of Arcachon by sea in an unprecedented operation. Some arrived on small water taxis, and others were carried on larger vessels operated by professionals.

Town hall officials set up a reception area for evacuees, providing coffee, fruit and water. Some of those who arrived early spent the rest of the night sleeping on the floor.

Hundreds of firefighters were deployed, and additional ground and aerial reinforcements were sent Friday to fight the fire. Farther south along the coast, another major wildfire also continued to burn and remained uncontained, with strong winds hindering firefighters' efforts.

Authorities believe both French fires were accidental.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 40,000 people had been evacuated in the Gironde department and 23,000 in the Landes.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France would receive EU reinforcements, including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said Italy and Greece were each sending two Canadair water-dumping aircraft. The cross-border deployments are coordinated through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which allows member states to pool firefighting resources during emergencies that overwhelm national capacity.

“We are experiencing a dramatic situation, not just in several Spanish regions but also in neighboring countries,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X.

Southern Europe has faced multiple large fires this summer. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists warn that climate change is worsening the frequency and intensity of heat and dry conditions, increasing the region's vulnerability to wildfires. France's Gironde region suffered similarly destructive wildfires in the summer of 2022, when tens of thousands of hectares burned, a pattern researchers increasingly link to rising temperatures and prolonged drought across the Mediterranean basin.

In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time after the fires forced the evacuation of about 20,000 people from villages near Madrid.

The national emergency means Spain's Interior Ministry, which oversees police and security forces, has taken charge of coordinating firefighting efforts by regional authorities as they struggle with multiple blazes fueled by a heatwave. A large fire in the central province of Ávila, along with fires in the Madrid region, prompted national authorities to intervene.

“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa told The Associated Press before he and his neighbors were evacuated from Chapinería, a village less than an hour's drive west of Madrid.

The regional government of Madrid, which covers a broad area around the capital, said about 18,000 people had been evacuated from villages and towns west of the city as multiple fires burned out of control late Thursday.

“In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,” Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo, told Spain's national broadcaster TVE. The town's 1,500 residents were preventively evacuated in Ávila.

Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said Spain has already seen 1,140 square kilometers (440 square miles) burned this year, more than five times the area that had burned through the first half of 2025.

Grande-Marlaska said that, in addition to the major fires in Madrid and Ávila that required direct national government involvement, nine serious fires were burning in other parts of Spain.

Temperatures were expected to exceed 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain on Friday, with a high of 44 C (111 F) forecast in Almeria in the southeast.

Spanish television aired video recorded by retreating residents showing walls of flame capped by long plumes of smoke moving through woods and scrubland. High winds and hilly terrain complicated the response by firefighters, who used firetrucks and bulldozers to battle the blazes.

This year's fires include Spain's second-largest fire on record, which burned about 320 square kilometers (120 square miles) in recent days in the province of Guadalajara, north of Madrid. Earlier this month, 13 people were killed in a fire in southern Spain, the country's deadliest fire in recent memory.

On Wednesday, Sánchez called for a pact among political parties to fight climate change, which he said is central to adapting to a climate more prone to fires. Spain has experienced record temperatures in recent summers and increasingly severe forest fires.

Authorities have not identified the cause of the fires near Madrid. Fires can be caused by sparks from agricultural machinery, lightning strikes, an errant cigarette or intentional arson.

In Italy, wildfires continued to damage parts of Sicily, with the central-western province of Agrigento among the hardest-hit areas.

Italy's national fire department reported late Thursday that it had carried out more than 1,400 operations since the previous weekend, including 240 in the Agrigento area. By Friday, seven of Sicily's nine provinces remained at the highest alert level for wildfires, while only the eastern coastal provinces of Messina and Catania were listed at a lower risk level, according to the civil protection agency's daily bulletin.

Fueled by temperatures that have topped 40 C (104 F), low humidity and winds, the fires have forced scattered evacuations and were blamed for the death of a firefighter responding to a blaze in Caltanissetta.

Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record and brought severe heat waves across Europe. Scientists warn that climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of heat and dryness, especially in southeastern Europe, increasing the region's exposure to health impacts and wildfires.

Alicia León in Chapinería, Spain, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story. Petrequin reported from Paris. Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com