'France faces most severe crisis since the Second World War'

**Nick Miles** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 28th of July, these are our main stories. Fires are burning out of control in parts of Southwest France. Others are bearing down on the Spanish capital. We hear how the fires are so big, they're creating their own weather systems. The UN body which fights AIDS says the world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic after funding cuts. And could India's youth protesters return to the streets after accusing the government of breaching a deal to end the weeks-long dispute?
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:42)
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**Nick Miles** (0:53)
We find out why Kenyan activists are taking multinational chemical companies to court and is a battlefield an appropriate place to award World Heritage Site status.
The fires raging in parts of France and Spain are some of the most intense in decades. They've caused commentators and politicians to issue stark warnings and make dark comparisons. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain called on all citizens to exercise extreme caution in the difficult, complex hours ahead. President Emmanuel Macron of France went even further. As he visited the worst affected area near Bordeaux in the southwest, he said it was his country's most severe crisis since the Second World War.
Both men know their administrations will be judged on how they react to the crisis. Meanwhile, with temperatures expected to soar again in the coming days, there are fears that Bordeaux could be at risk. Gwyn Lodar is nearby and sent this report.

**Gwyn Lodar** (1:57)
For days, wildfires have raged in the southwest of France.
For weary firefighters here, Canadian aircraft provide welcome relief. Most towns and villages in this area are almost deserted. The blaze now burns within 10 miles of the city of Bordeaux. The fires are raging in this rural area. Flames occasionally leaping several feet into the air. Thick, black smoke rising as well, sticking in the back of your throat. Wildfires aren't uncommon in this area near Bordeaux. Weymar Eryd has lived for the past 16 years.

**Weymar Eryd** (2:30)
Then we're going to take the kids and move further north out of reach of the smoke and the polluted air, or as far as we can. We're lucky enough to have someone where we can go so that we just get, especially the kids, just get them away and get them to some cleanery.

**Gwyn Lodar** (2:46)
French President Emmanuel Macron has today been meeting the teams fighting the flames, which could take months to put out.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:54)
We must understand we are facing a completely unprecedented wildfire. The situation we are dealing with today is the most severe we have ever recorded, the toughest since the Second World War.

**Gwyn Lodar** (3:08)
Across the border, in Spain too, the situation is dire.
What's been called the biggest wildfire in the region's history burns near Madrid. There's no shortage of dry vegetation for it to consume, thanks to successive heat waves after a wet winter. The pace of the flames have slowed in Valencia, but the fires are still very much active, and the government says the next two days will be crucial on whether they can be brought under control.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:34)
This is the new reality.

**SPEAKER_6** (3:36)
Summers are becoming increasingly difficult, destructive and therefore deadly.

**Gwyn Lodar** (3:41)
In Spain, as in France, hot dry weather is forecast for the coming days. The fear here is that an already difficult situation could become catastrophic.

**Nick Miles** (3:51)
Gwyn Lodur near Bordeaux. Well, Stav Dines from the BBC Weather Centre told me how the arrival of more hot weather will affect the fires.

**Stav Dines** (4:00)
Well, as likely temperatures will reach again, the 40 Celsius mark, maybe even more than that, across central northern Spain, southern France, in the areas where we have the fires blazing. This is probably the worst outlook they could have expected, with dry air and extreme heat, with very little in the way of rain. There could be a few isolated showers and thunderstorms over the higher ground, for example, the Pyrenees, maybe towards the Alps, central and eastern France, but nowhere close to where we have the fires at the moment.

**Nick Miles** (4:26)
So quite apart from all this very warm hot air coming in from northern Africa, there are also problems associated with the clouds that are formed in the areas where the fires are. Explain what's happening there.

**Stav Dines** (4:39)
Pirate clouds, as they're known, are quite a feature of the extremely large fires that we get in North America and Canada and the US, where they almost form their own weather system. Now, because these fires are so large, they're burning so fiercely, they're actually producing their own clouds, all the heat, the smoke and water from all the vegetation. Despite it being tinder dry, there is still some moisture in the vegetation, which is pushing up into the atmosphere, forming clouds, they're getting high enough to actually form updrafts and downdrafts. The wind close to the ground that has been drawn up in the cloud begins to blow erratically, so it fans the flames, it changes the direction of the flames without any warning. And as the updrafts develop, we can actually see flashes of lightning, much like you'd see in the ash cloud of a volcano that erupts, that almost forms its own cloud.