Two words on repeat as dreamy Euro Summer replaced by ‘red hell’

Two words are being repeated with increasing urgency as parts of Europe burn with a terrifying intensity.

Spain is battling its worst bushfire ever and blazes have forced what’s believed to be the largest peacetime evacuation in French history. Scientists and politicians are increasingly pointing the finger directly at the climate emergency.

As winter bites in Australia and some thoughts turn to a dreamy Euro Summer, TV screens have instead been filled with images reminiscent of the Black Saturday bushfires that killed hundreds in 2009.

Greg Mullins was there, coordinating the response to the horror as the commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW.

It left a lasting impact and he went on to lead the formation of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and become a climate councillor with the Climate Council Australia.

“We’d never lost more than about 230 homes in a bad year, but we lost 11 times that number in that year, with millions of hectares burnt, and we just couldn’t put the fires out,” he told the BBC on Tuesday. 

“They were too big, too hot, and again, it was the worst weather we’d ever experienced. 

“The attribution science is very clear: it could not have happened without the temperature increase caused by the burning of coal, oil, and gas by humans.”

‘The climate emergency kills’

Mullins said the “unfolding disaster” in France and Spain had “the fingerprints of climate change all over it.”

He’s by no means alone. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called the fires “the most painful expression of a climate emergency” and begged his country to come together and form a national climate pact.

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“It is no longer an exception: it is the rule itself. Summers are becoming increasingly difficult, destructive and deadly,” he said.

“The evidence is clear: the climate emergency kills. That is why it is not enough simply to deal with the consequences. We must tackle the root causes, anticipate the consequences and better prepare our country to protect people’s lives.”

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said the “climate alarm is blaring, from every direction”.

“Around the world, climate-driven disasters are reaching nightmare proportions, as the costs of humanity’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas keep spiralling upwards,” he said, on Tuesday.“These record-breaking wildfires tearing through France, Spain and other parts of Europe, forcing mass evacuations and hammering regional and national economies, follow brutal heatwaves that have dried out landscapes.

“With the mercury set to soar again this week, the awful costs of this climate crisis – both human and economic – are now reaching national emergency levels.”

The plain speaking is a breath of fresh air for Mullins. He said the former emergency leaders battled to warn of the fire danger before the 2019-20 Black Summer – during which then prime minister Scott Morrison famously justified his holiday in Hawaii by saying “I don’t hold a house mate” – but were ignored because they mentioned climate change.

“The politicisation of climate change is unbelievable to someone like me, a public safety professional who is laser-focused on saving life, property, the environment,” he told the BBC.

“And I can’t understand politicians who either don’t understand or lie about what is actually happening to our planet and the need to rapidly cut climate pollution and try to stabilise the temperatures.”

Thousands more evacuated in France

French authorities ordered nearly 4000 more people to evacuate from Atlantic coast tourist sites on Tuesday as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.

Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by huge wildfires. Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with several blazes still burning out of control, including the largest in its recorded history.

Even so, Spanish authorities began lifting evacuation and stay-at-home orders for thousands of people after firefighters made progress overnight.

The Gironde fire has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said it is “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation operation carried out in the country outside war.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the wildfire crisis possibly the most severe the country has faced since World War Two.

“The weeks ahead will be hard. We must hold firm,” Macron said.

‘Hell cracked the ground open’

At least 14 people have died in wildfires in Spain this year, making 2026 one of the country’s deadliest fire seasons in decades.

“I’ve been living in San Martín de Valdeiglesias for 20 years and I never thought I would see this,” said Estella Costales, an evacuated resident staying at a temporary shelter in Brunete, near Madrid. 

“It’s unfortunate, but I never thought I would see such destruction.”

For those caught in the fire’s path, escape often came down to grabbing relatives and pets, and leaving everything else behind.

Spanish evacuee Jose Miguel Encinas, 53, in La Vall d’Uixo in eastern Spain recalled scenes of “total chaos”.

“It was like in the movies where hell cracked the ground open, and you see the red hell.”

Australian Dina Jak left Bourdeaux with her family due to the smoke and was staying in the countryside about 2½ hours away.

She described the situation in Bourdeaux as “frantic” and “stressed”.

“I guess being here, far away from it, we’ve kind of calmed ourselves down, but definitely back there, you can smell the smoke in the house, you can smell the smoke outside of the house, you get an instant headache,” she told 9News.

Terrifying weather phenomenon seen in France and Spain

Large wildfires, such as in Gironde, are capable of creating their own microclimate, with rising heat and smoke forming towering storm clouds. These clouds can sometimes produce strong winds and lightning, which can stoke new fires. 

The phenomenon, known as a pyrocumulonimbus, has been observed in Australia and several other countries that experience major bushfires but this is believed to be the first time it’s been seen in Spain.

“We fight against a monster,” French firefighters’ association spokesperson Eric Brocardi said. Local weather services in Ávila, Spain also shared images on Tuesday of what they described as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud over the blaze. 

Spain has seen these fire-generated thunderstorms form at least twice during bushfires in recent years.

“Look at how the valley is burned. Look at the houses, the people,” said David Gonzalez, a 48-year-old gardener who used his van to deliver supplies to firefighters in Ávila.

“We are feeling a lot of anger and helplessness. It’s something inhuman,” he said.

Fires have burned 1,530 square kilometres  this year in Spain, Ecology Minister Sara Aagesen said.

France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning beginning at midday (8pm AEST)  on Tuesday, forecasting inland temperatures of 33 to 35 degrees.

More than 1160 square kilometers have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. 

Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness contributing to the spread and intensification of fires in France and Spain, Copernicus said.

Resources stretched to breaking point

Other EU members and Turkey sent waterbombing aircraft to both Spain and France. Sweden, Portugal – which itself was battling bushfires requiring hundreds of firefighters and dozens of aircraft –  Switzerland and Serbia also deployed ground teams.

But the intensity and duration of the fires have raised questions about the availability of resources.

Avincis, Europe’s largest aerial emergency services firm, has warned that Europe is not ready for longer and more extreme wildfire seasons, as its firefighting aircraft were now needed almost year-round.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said emergency support services were coming under increasing strain in Spain and France as evacuations continued.

“This is the pattern we are seeing more and more across Europe: heatwaves, drought and wildfires feeding into one another, and communities bearing the consequences,” said Maria Alcazar Castilla, IFRC deputy regional director for Europe, calling for investment in preparedness and climate adaptation.

Mullins, the former FRNSW commissioner, said the world simply did not have enough resources to fight the increasing fire risk.

“Now we have overlapping fire seasons between different countries where we used to share a lot of resources, and we often find at crucial times there’s not enough of those major assets available,” he told the BBC.

“For example, Canada and the US are burning; they’re not going to lend any planes. 

“There’s Australian aircraft in the US at the moment, so it’s countries that have always burnt are burning more, and countries like the UK, Norway, Greenland that have never burnt are now burning.”