Tens of thousands flee fires in France

Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires in southwest France by car and boat on Friday and Spain declared a national emergency as huge blazes merged outside Madrid and searing heat left tinder-dry conditions across the region.

French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourism hotspot on its Atlantic Coast. Two fires merged outside Madrid, and a third was on the verge of joining them, government officials said.

Both countries, which have suffered a succession of heatwaves and fires in recent months and years that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change, sought help from the European Union as the blazes strained emergency services.

Spain's national emergency - the first it had ever declared over a wildfire - opened up federal funding to tackle the crisis.

"This is the worst wildfire in our region's history," Madrid's regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said after telling reporters the fires had merged. "It's the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren't letting up."

In southwest France, authorities sent boats to help the evacuation and a total of about 63,000 people, many of them tourists, were told to get out as two major, separate fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.

"From our home, we had a view of the fires ... We could see the clouds becoming darker and darker," said Yoan Urien, who left late on Thursday after police told everyone in his neighbourhood in the town of Biscarrosse to leave.

"I was able to find somewhere to take shelter with my pets, but ... it's quite a shock," the 26-year-old told Reuters.

The other major fire, which began in nearby Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to cut off the only road out of the peninsula and is the largest so far this season in France, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told local television.