Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in recent days as wildfires continue to burn across France and Spain.
Some 220,000 people have been evacuated in France’s Gironde department, authorities said earlier this week.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Sunday that another 36,000 people had been evacuated from Rand and around 3,000 people in Var could be told to leave their homes.
More people have been evacuated since then, with around 4,000 people today told to leave Lacanau, a popular tourist destination in the Gironde department, according to French public broadcaster France Info.
By Sunday, about 42,000 hectares of land had been burned in the Gironde region, Nuñez said. Approximately 3,600 hectares of land have been destroyed by fire.
French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday: “The situation we face today is the most severe we have ever recorded and the most severe since World War II.”
“More than 160,000 hectares have already been burned and the season is not over yet,” he said.
At least 63,152 people were forced to evacuate their homes in central Spain’s Madrid, Toledo and Avila, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
The total area burned in the Madrid region alone is around 34,000 hectares, Madrid Community President Isabel Díaz Ayuso said this morning.
CNN’s Issy Ronald, Pierre P. Bailin, Pau Mosquera, Joseph Ataman and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.
