Fires in Europe: latest developments

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

'Incalculable' damage

Spain's King Felipe VI, visiting a shelter for evacuees, said the wildfires ravaging the countryside around Madrid and other areas had caused "incalculable" damage to the nation's natural heritage.

Earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking on a trip to the fire zone west of Madrid, said "difficult hours lie ahead". He added, however, that there were "positive" indications towards containing the blaze.

Bordeaux 'vigilant'

With France's major wildfire burning very close to Bordeaux, the city's mayor said officials were "vigilant" but no evacuation was planned.

"The fire is further south," he told reporters at a shelter for people displaced in surrounding areas.

The wildfire has forced the evacuation of 220,000 people, making it one of the largest such operations in French history.

Pope's prayers

Pope Leo IV, in his Sunday prayers, expressed solidarity with all those affected by the "devastating" fires and called on people to pray for them and for first responders.

Spain dealing with 'monster'

Spain is fighting a fiery "monster" that has created a "massive emergency", the head of Spain's civil protection service, Virginia Barcones, told state broadcaster TVE.

"Across this national wildfire crisis, we are dealing with a perimeter of 280 kilometres encompassing 77,000 hectares (19,000 acres)," she said.

'Unpredictable' blaze in France

France's interior minister, Laurent Nunez, said a massive wildfire in the southwestern Gironde region, near Bordeaux, "became extremely intense and unpredictable again" overnight.

It was "generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area", he said.

A total of 2,500 firefighters, including a Swiss firefighting team, 1,500 military personnel and around 1,200 police have been deployed to Gironde, he said.

Bordeaux wine thief

French police said a patrol in Eysines, a largely evacuated outlying suburb of Bordeaux, had on Saturday arrested a man who allegedly stole 44 bottles of prestige grand cru wine from an empty home.

Roads and rail cut by fires

With high winds spreading flames in the giant Gironde wildfire, 60 kilometres (40 miles) of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border has been closed, regional authorities said.

The SNCF rail company said it had also halted train traffic for about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Bordeaux.

Megafire burns 42,000 hectares

Regional authorities said Sunday that the Gironde fire in southwest France has now burned 42,000 hectares (103,000 acres) of land, making it one of the country's biggest devastations of land since World War II. A 1949 fire devoured some 50,000 hectares.

Var wildfire still active

Around 2,000 people were still unable to return home in France's southeastern Var department because of the Ponteves wildfire, which authorities said was still "very active" after burning 4,000 hectares in five days.

In Corsica, firefighters were still struggling to contain a blaze near Corte that had spread across more than 800 hectares.

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