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French wildfires show signs of easing, with containment efforts holding in Var and Gironde after destructive blazes.

Gale-force winds have fanned flames across multiple parts of Greece, intensifying a new front in Europe’s wildfire emergency, while major fires in France and Spain show signs of easing, with blazes either not advancing or under control.

Hundreds of firefighters, backed by water-dropping planes and helicopters, worked with emergency workers to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as heavy winds drove flames through the coastal area west of Athens on Saturday.

The fire broke out on Friday near the neighbouring village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued further evacuation orders for the regions, according to The Associated Press.

Greek authorities issued emergency alerts for several areas for Saturday and warned of extreme wildfire risk in the regions of Attica and Evia.

A Greek newspaper, Protothema, reported the fire in Porto Germeno split into three fronts and many houses caught fire in the area, prompting authorities to issue evacuation orders for nearby towns of Agia Paraskevi, Kryo Pigadi and Agios Nektarios.

Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, told The AP an estimated 15 to 19 square miles (39 – 50sq km) had been affected, although authorities had not issued an official burned-area figure.

Fires ‘under control’ in France

The wildfires that have ravaged France are “today under control”, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Saturday, more than a week after the largest wildfire since 1949 flared up.

“Overall, the fires are now under control in our country” and, in Gironde, in the southwest, “we have returned to a more stable situation,” he said in an interview with the La Tribune Dimanche weekly.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said flames that left a trail of destruction across villages have eased. In a post on X, he said fires in Gironde were now under control while “significant work has been done to contain the fire’s progression by the 1,500 firefighters” in the mountainous southeastern Var department, where fire burnt through 1,500 additional hectares (3,700 acres) of land.

In the Var, defensive lines around the Gros Bessillon fire held overnight, and no additional ground burned, Var Prefect Simon Babre told French media on Saturday.

Portugal’s major wildfire was declared under control, while Spain’s largest fires were no longer making sustained advances and most evacuation orders had been lifted.

Spanish conditions mixed

Spain continued battling several wildfire hot spots on Saturday, two days after the government declared the end of a national emergency caused by huge fires in the country’s central provinces.

However, fires worsened overnight in Leon.

Europe is Earth’s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought leave vegetation drier and more combustible, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.

Both countries expect to see temperatures soar into Wednesday, which could cause the blazes to spread.

The spread of wildfires in France and Spain that had come dangerously close to the cities of Bordeaux and Madrid appears to be slowing, authorities say, but they are bracing for yet another stifling heatwave this week, which could fan the flames of current blazes and ignite new ones.

Nearly 4,000 people were evacuated from tourist sites in the Lacanau area of the Gironde region in southwestern France on Tuesday, bringing the total number who have fled Gironde to well over a quarter of a million. The wine-growing region, which includes the historic city of Bordeaux is the worst affected in France by the wildfires

“We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told BFMTV on Tuesday. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.”

Images posted by the French newspaper Le Figaro showed ash on a beach in Lacanau. Sophie Brocas, Gironde’s prefect, has banned all sporting and cultural events until August 8.

France’s fourth heatwave of 2026 is expected to begin on Tuesday as temperatures are forecast to reach as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coming days. When the heatwave reaches Spain on Wednesday, temperatures are expected to be even hotter there.

In Spain, 116,000 people have had to leave their homes since the wildfires began, but some have since been able to return. In the central province of Toledo, people from nine of 11 evacuated towns were allowed to go back to their homes on Tuesday.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said people “can be a little more at ease” after progress overnight in tackling the many blazes in the country, which are mostly concentrated in central Spain.

Firefighters are also dealing with blazes in the neighbouring provinces of Avila and Toledo. About 800sq km (310sq miles) of land have burned.

One Spanish evacuee from the east of the country told the Reuters news agency he had witnessed “total chaos”.

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

The scorching heat has renewed concerns about climate change with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez describing the fires as “the most painful expression of a climate emergency”.

Sanchez said authorities are beginning “to see the light at the end of the tunnel in the fight against wildfires” but cautioned that the upcoming heatwave still has to be dealt with.