Thousands return home in Spain as wildfires stabilize but heatwave keeps authorities on alert

MADRID — Thousands of peope who were forced to evacuate from the region of Madrid returned home on Wednesday as the wildfires had been stabilized and authorities lifted restrictions in several areas.In the Madrid region alone, 24,000 people have been told they can return and lockdowns on another 20,000 have been lifted.A day earlier, Spanish authorities had lifted over a dozen evacuation orders for municipalities west of the capital of Madrid, where the fire had burned most fiercely.Regional authorities said weather conditions improved overnight, which helped firefighting teams reduce the intensity of the fires.On Tuesday, President of the Community of Madrid Isabel Díaz Ayuso wrote the situation was “improving little by little,”Also in Valencia, the regional government lifted a lockdown order.In total, 207,000 hectares of land have burned across Spain so far this year, the highest amount recorded in the country for any January-to-July period, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. Spanish authorities have reported marginally different figures.In neighboring France, 92,000 hectares were burned, the largest on record in two decades.Authorities in the Gironde prefecture, the most heavily impacted by the wildfires, reported a second calm night, adding that the major fire near the city of Bordeaux was stable.However, Spain and France are both braced for the start of the fourth heatwave so far this summer and some fires have continued to burn, including one at Burgohondo 150km (93 miles) west of Madrid.French President Emmanuel Macron, who called the fire crises the country’s worst crisis since WWI, reminded the coming weeks will be tough, with weather conditions set to worsen on Wednesday.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has warned the next 12 hours will be “decisive” in putting out the wildfire near the capital. “Things are progressing favourably, with maximum caution,” he told reporters, because of higher temperatures, lower humidity and the risk of gusts of wind.Both the Girande and Landes regions are under an orange-level warning, with temperatures expected to reach 41 degrees Celsius inland and 38 on the coast.Strong winds with gusts of 30 to 45 km/h are also expected, raising concerns that they could reignite the fires.Wednesday “will be an important day that we will be watching very closely, given the extreme temperatures we are going to have,” Gironde fire chief Lieutenant Colonel Eric Pitault said on Tuesday.The wildfires that swept across Spain and France are among the largest the two countries have experienced in recent history.Scientists have warned that the June heatwave, which helped fuel the wildfires, was not an isolated event.According to their European State of the Climate 2025 report, Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, with temperatures rising at around twice the global average.Climate experts warn that human-induced climate change is making heatwaves more frequent, more intense, and increasingly likely to occur earlier and later in the year.