"A monster", "the apocalypse", "something never seen before". The French press is struggling to find words to describe what has been happening since last Wednesday in the département of the Gironde, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in the south-western portion of the country. One of the worst wildfires in the history of France, of gigantic proportions and still uncontrollable, broke out in the commune of Saumos, fuelled by extremely favourable meteorological conditions: weeks of extreme heat, a complete absence of rainfall, arid soils and dry vegetation.

Préfète de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine et de la Gironde ✓ @PrefAquitaine33

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🔴 Un incendie exceptionnel que la France n'a jamais connu.

Objectifs pour les forces de secours : préserver les vies humaines, protéger les biens et notamment les sites sensibles.

Le directeur du service d'incendie et de secours de Gironde décrit la stratégie actuellement

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42,000 hectares burned, 220,000 evacuated, 240 homes destroyed, 2,500 firefighters on site

The perfect "fuel" to generate an explosive situation at the first spark. The strong winds of recent days then did the rest. The result, illustrated by the figures released by the French authorities, is catastrophic: 42,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have already been destroyed. 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and 1,200 police officers and gendarmes have been deployed to the scene, along with hundreds of ground vehicles and aircraft. Firefighters injured already number 84, while homes destroyed now stand at 240 (170 located in a single commune, Porge).

At the same time, the evacuation of 220,000 residents of the area has been ordered: equivalent to the entire city of Padova. Moreover, although the authorities have specified that the matter is, for now, "not on the agenda", the evacuation of a large city such as Bordeaux has even been hypothesised, as the flames have now reached just 15 kilometres from the city centre, where 267,000 people live.

Thunderstorms caused by pyrocumulonimbus clouds reported, self-fuelling the fires

The fire is so immense that it has also generated pyrocumulonimbus clouds: clouds produced by smoke and the extreme temperatures of the flames, which grow so large and dense that they cause genuine thunderstorms. "We have recorded multiple episodes of this incredible, unprecedented and unknown phenomenon – declared the prefect of the Gironde département, Sophie Brocas –. This is something unpredictable, which causes lightning and consequently new ignitions, as well as additional wind that feeds the fire. All of this in a département that is home to one of the most important forests in Europe, which means fuel in abundance".

What have been dubbed "fire thunderstorms" make the evolution of the blazes even more unpredictable and the work of firefighters even more complicated. "It is a miracle that there have been no deaths", observed Jean-Baptiste Filippi, a researcher at the Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Université Corse-Pasquale-Paoli, speaking to the newspaper Le Monde.

The Telegraph ✓ @Telegraph

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A rare "fire cloud" has formed in Bordeaux as wildfires continue to ravage France forcing British tourists to flee.

🔗: telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

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"What we are witnessing is extremely exceptional: a cloud this enormous and high above a fire is extremely rare", he added. For example, the mega-wildfire that struck Pedrogao, in Portugal, in 2017, killing sixty people, produced two pyrocumulonimbus clouds. In this case, eight have already been recorded.

Sending too many reinforcements is impossible, as the risk of wildfires is high in northern regions too

Unable to contain the fire, civilians have come to help in numerous communes. Hundreds of farmers with tractors and other vehicles are following the orders of firefighters across the numerous "fronts" of the blaze. Meanwhile, thousands of citizens are reaching the personnel wherever possible, bringing water and food.

With no time to rest, firefighters are sleeping in their trucks or on the ground, leaning against tyres, for a few hours before returning to work. "We try to sleep at least three or four hours to recover. But our bodies are beginning to suffer. Some colleagues are starting to struggle", one of them said, speaking to broadcaster France Info. Another, even more explicitly, explained: "We are tired but above all powerless. Totally powerless. We need more men, we are doing what we can but it is truly complicated".

Unlike in other years, however, it is also difficult to move too many firefighters and vehicles to the site. The spokesperson for the Fédération nationale des sapeurs-pompiers, Eric Brocardi, has indeed acknowledged "operational difficulties". "Today the personnel present in the northern regions cannot be fully mobilised as in other cases, because the risk of wildfires is high there too", he added. Before raising the need for more structural reflection: "Our fear is that by September we will have forgotten everything".

Unbreathable air across the Bordeaux area

France has been fighting dozens of fires for weeks. Since the beginning of the year, 115,000 hectares have been burned by the flames, and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has spoken of 30 to 40 fires breaking out every day across the country.

In the areas affected by the mega-fire in the Gironde, in particular, the air has also become unbreathable. The regional observatory Atmo issued a red alert across six departments, as PM10 fine particulate matter has exceeded maximum levels everywhere. So much so that prefect Brocas, in the height of the holiday season, urged tourists to "choose other destinations" and avoid the area.

Al Jazeera English ✓ @AJEnglish

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Firefighters are battling enormous wildfires tearing through forests in France and Spain, as authorities warn of a new heatwave set to engulf the scorched French wine-growing region around the city of Bordeaux.

— in pictures aje.news/17r9xf

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Adding further concern is the fact that weather forecasts point to the arrival of a new extreme heatwave — the fourth since last May in France — which will hit the south-west of the country from Tuesday onwards. Maximum temperatures are once again expected to reach around 40 degrees Celsius, with winds slightly less strong than in recent days but particularly dry: once again, the worst possible conditions for firefighters battling the flames.

Three mega-fires risk merging near Madrid, Spain. Sánchez: "A national climate pact is needed"

Another three mega-fires are ravaging the region of Madrid, in Spain. More than 90,000 people have been evacuated and 45,000 hectares have been destroyed to the west of the capital. At least two, and possibly all three of the fires, now risk merging into a single immense blaze, according to local authorities, which would make it even harder to bring under control.

112 Comunidad de Madrid ✓ @112cmadrid

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Actualización 18:34h #IFSierraOeste.

🚒 En este momento, 50 medios terrestres y 12 aéreos, con más de 400 profesionales, están trabajando en el dispositivo por el incendio que afecta a la @ComunidadMadrid.

Agradecemos el trabajo incansable que están realizando todos los

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In the Iberian nation too, extreme heatwaves have multiplied in recent months. The Iberian meteorological agency stated on the evening of Sunday 26 July that the first seven months of the year had been "the hottest on record in the entire historical series". A direct consequence of ongoing global warming. It comes as no surprise, then, that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez