Thousands crowd shelters as wildfires force exodus in France, Spain

Thousands crowded into emergency shelters in France and Spain on Sunday after wildfires drove more than 300,000 people to flee their homes and holiday accommodation.

The blazes have destroyed houses, displaced people on a massive scale and triggered one of the largest peacetime civilian evacuation operations ever carried out in France, with major fires still burning in both countries.

One person was killed in eastern Spain and fresh evacuations were ordered around the French city of Bordeaux and the Spanish capital Madrid as authorities warned of another difficult night.

Families slept on camp beds in exhibition halls and gymnasiums after fleeing walls of smoke and flames that swept through forests and tourist areas, leaving residents and holidaymakers uncertain if they would be able to return.

"We were told: 'You have to evacuate'," said Frederic Tavitian, 70, who spent the night at Bordeaux's exhibition centre, converted into a vast emergency shelter.

"We saw columns of smoke, like a volcano about to erupt."

Around 5,000 to 6,000 displaced people spent the night at the centre.

According to the Gironde fire service, the blaze generated a rare "pyrocumulonimbus" cloud, creating its own winds and whirlwinds and making it "erratic and unmanageable", firefighter Captain Nicolas Braz told AFP.

Spanish authorities meanwhile ordered new evacuations near Toledo, southwest of Madrid.

"Today we are rather more pessimistic than we were yesterday," Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters on Saturday. "The weather conditions have not helped at all," he added.