Fire-ravaged France evacuates tourists and braces for new heatwave

French authorities ordered nearly 4,000 more people to evacuate Tuesday from tourist sites on the Atlantic coast as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.

Spanish firefighter Javier García has never faced anything like the record blaze raging near Madrid in his two decades protecting woodlands and rural communities.

More than 300,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the two countries, in what the Associated Press described as one of Europe's largest evacuation operations in decades.

The ferocity of Spain’s largest recorded wildfire is forcing firefighters to fundamentally change their tactics, prioritizing evacuations and property protection due to the danger posed by fast-moving walls of flames and blazes too powerful to attack directly.