Fires in Europe: latest developments

Here are the main developments related to the wildfires raging in Spain and France on Monday:

Madrid fires slow, France stable

The major wildfires west of Madrid "slowed their advance" during the night although they remain a threat, the regional government said on Monday.

"The situation has improved slightly, but the fire is still active," the Madrid regional government said in a statement, urging residents to remain "extremely cautious".

Lower temperatures, weaker winds and higher air humidity levels helped firefighters to make progress.

French authorities said meanwhile that the major fire in the southwest Gironde region was stable overnight, authorities said. President Emmanuel Macron was to chair a crisis cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the wildfires, his office said.

Spain plans returns

Spanish authorities said they planned to start to allow some people evacuated from wildfires near Madrid to return on Monday.

Francisco Martin Aguirre, a government delegate for the Madrid region, said authorities planned to reopen a campsite where 4,500 people had been evacuated and also allow elderly residents back home in another area.

Holiday camps banned

Authorities in France's Gironde region said Monday they were banning holiday camps, including Scouts' trips with overnight stays and holiday camps for people with disabilities.

115,000 hectares burned

Some 115,000 hectares (284,000 acres) have burned in wildfires in France since the start of the year, "far more than anything we have seen in the past", Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Sunday.

France was battling 30 to 40 wildfires daily, Nunez told France 2 television.

He said earlier that 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss firefighting team, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to Gironde to battle the major inferno.

Fire cloud

The gigantic wildfire ravaging southwest France has created a dangerous "pyrocumulonimbus" -- a phenomenon never before seen in the country -- the spokesman for the country's National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF) told AFP.

Also called a cumulonimbus flammagenitus, they can occur during volcanic eruptions or, as in this case, when a wildfire roasts the air near the ground, causing it to rise quickly. The rising air cools and becomes a "fire cloud": a turbulent mass that can generate its own winds that worsen fires.

No quick return

The 220,000 people evacuated away from the massive wildfire in France's Gironde region will not be able to return home "until the fire has been brought under control", the local prefect said Sunday.

"I urge tourists not to come, not to travel to the Gironde," added Sophie Brocas.

There would be no normal workday Monday in the affected towns, ahead of a possible worsening of the situation on Tuesday due to an expected rise in temperatures, she added.

Italy sea evacuations

More than 400 people in Italy were evacuated by sea Sunday as a wildfire swept through parts of the southern Adriatic coast, with several hundred more expected to be rescued, the coastguard said.

Spain's largest fire

The wildfires ravaging areas around Spain's capital Madrid have included the largest forest fire in the country's recent history, Sara Aagesen, Minister for Ecological Transition, told journalists.

The blazes have "affected" 77,000 hectares in the Madrid, Avila and Toledo regions, with the largest area around Avila, she said.

burs/dcp/tw