PARIS (AP) — Heat waves and scant rainfall in Europe have contributed to historic wildfires in France and Spain that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in one of the continent's biggest evacuation efforts since World War II.
Rising temperatures later this week could complicate efforts to battle the blazes that have scorched an area four times the size of Paris in southwestern France and are raging near Spain's capital, Madrid.
Climate data shows Europe is heating faster than anywhere else on earth. The continent has already faced extreme heat events multiple times this year.
Firefighters in Spain have called the blazes so violent that they could not be tackled head on. But the first glimmer of hope emerged Monday in France that the spread of a giant fire in the southwestern Gironde region may have slowed.
Here's what to know.
Europe's above-average temperatures, with a prolonged heatwave in June, have contributed to drought conditions. Record-breaking temperatures in Western Europe compounded low rainfall levels as the extreme heat drew moisture from vegetation, creating abundant fuel that allows flames to spread faster and burn more intensely.
A study released in June by World Weather Attribution found that the record-breaking heat in recent weeks would not have been possible without climate change.
France's national meteorological service Météo-France said June was the hottest on record there, averaging 3.8 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, while rainfall was nearly 50% below average.
Spain is used to forest fires in warmer months, but climate change has made its summers hotter and drier. That, combined with the decline in farming and industries that once used forest materials, has turned large swaths of wilderness into a tinderbox.
While estimates vary, national and European Union authorities are reporting fires of record scope this year. The EU’s European Forest Fire Information System estimates that over 300,000 hectares (3,000 square kilometers or 1,160 square miles) have burned in France and Spain.
France’s Interior Ministry says fires have swept across 115,000 hectares (1,150 square kilometers or 444 square miles) since January, the highest annual figure in the country’s modern records.
Spain’s Minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, said the 153,000 hectares (1,530 square kilometers or 591 square miles) burned this year is six times the amount that burned through the first half of 2025.
Contributing to this year's total was Spain's largest and third-largest fires ever in just over a week, with a blaze in the rural terrain of Ávila west of Madrid burning over 50,000 hectares (500 square kilometers or 193 square miles).
Earlier this month, 13 people died in a blaze in southeastern Almeria, Spain's deadliest fire in recent memory.
Over 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes in France and Spain in what the EU on Monday called “one of the biggest evacuation operations in Europe.”
More than 250,000 people have been evacuated in France, with 220,000 of them in the southwestern region of Gironde. With France about to enter its peak August tourist season, Gironde authorities took steps to keep vacationers away, banning holiday camps for children and for people with disabilities.
A total of 76,000 people have been evacuated in Spain while 30,000 others have been confined to their homes, the government said.
European Commissioner for crisis management Hadja Lahbib said Monday that the EU had sent seven planes and four helicopters from Czechia, Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden and Turkey to France, and another six planes from Greece, Italy and Turkey to Spain.
“No country should ever have to face a disaster of this scale alone,” Lahbib said. “To the people of France and Spain: Europe will stand with you until the fires are out.”
The 27-nation bloc’s Copernicus satellite program is providing emergency authorities with up-to-date maps of fire risk.
Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary. Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, and Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed.
A De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8 operated by the French civil defense agency drops fire retardant as wildfires rage near Marcheprime, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters tackle a blaze as wildfires rage near Le Las, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, Spain, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
LONDON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet Monday at a naval base in England with Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a visit the British leader said is intended to signal the country's “unwavering” support for Kyiv.
Zelenskyy's trip is the first by a foreign leader since Burnham took office a week ago. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, was in Kyiv less than two weeks ago in his last overseas trip before leaving office.
Burnham will be the fifth British prime minister to deal with Zelenskyy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long lasting and just peace for Ukraine,” said Burnham, who has spent the past nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester and has little foreign policy experience.
The U.K. trip comes a day before Zelenskyy is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.
During the visit to Portsmouth on England's south coast, Zelenskyy and Burnham will meet more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel who have spent the past three weeks in Britain. They have been taking part in an exercise aimed at strengthening their fighting capabilities and measures to counter mines in the Black Sea, the U.K. government said.
The U.K. will give Ukraine the intellectual property behind its new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, which is capable of jamming Russian air defenses to stop drones from being detected, Burnham’s office said.
Ukraine has expanded its campaign of frequent drone attacks deep inside Russia that have targeted oil facilities, military factories and, most recently, logistical centers, bringing the war home to millions of Russians and raising pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
The raids have shattered Putin’s narrative of the conflict as something that doesn’t affect the lives of ordinary people in his country. But he has remained undeterred and Russia has ramped up its aerial campaign, regularly bombarding Ukraine with missiles and drones.
Russia again attacked Ukraine overnight with 147 long-range drones, according to the Ukrainian air force, which said it intercepted or jammed 123 of them.
In Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and two injured in attacks on the city that damaged a high-rise residential building and several private residences overnight, according to regional administration head Ivan Fedorov.
A Russian strike on the town of Balakliia in the Kharkiv region killed one person and wounded eight, according to Vitalii Karabanov, head of the city military administration.
In the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian strikes damaged a kindergarten, residential buildings and infrastructure, injuring a woman and a 6-year-old boy, according to administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.
In the eastern Kharkiv region, a regional council member said Russian forces destroyed every gas station along the highway between Kharkiv and Poltava, a distance of about 150 kilometers (93 miles). Oleksandr Skoryk said the situation is becoming more critical daily, but the region is not facing a fuel or food crisis.
The highway is a key supply route linking Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city and a regional hub close to the Russian border, with central Ukraine. Russia has intensified strikes on gas stations, power facilities and other infrastructure this year as part of a broader campaign to strain Ukraine’s logistics and energy networks.
Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said a drone briefly entered its airspace before crossing the river border into Ukraine, where explosions were subsequently reported. It said two F-16 fighter jets were deployed to monitor airspace.
The drone’s incursion into Romanian airspace marked the fourth such incident in as many days. The three previous drones were all shot down by the NATO member.
In Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 276 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said five people, including a child, were killed when a Ukrainian drone hit an apartment building in Rostov-on-Don. Ukraine’s military General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck an export terminal in Rostov-on-Don, setting it ablaze.
The Ukrainian military said other strikes in the Moscow-held part of the Kherson region targeted a ground relay station used to control drones and a bridge over the Henichesk Strait that Russia uses for military logistics. Russian fuel and supply depots were also hit.
In the city of Belgorod in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine, a Ukrainian drone attack injured 12, including two children, according to regional emergency officials.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Ukraine struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, killing a sailor.
In a statement on X on Sunday, Araghchi denounced the attack as a “blatant U.N. Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.” He said he made it clear in calls with the European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the attack “can't go unanswered.”
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea over the weekend achieved “very good results,” adding that the targets included “vessels involved in transporting military cargo linked to Iran, as well as a warship.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha rejected Iran’s threats of retaliation as unjustified and groundless, saying Tehran's weapons supplies to Russia have made it a direct accomplice to Moscow's aggression. “Iran has no standing to pretend to be a victim," he posted on X, and called its references to the U.N. Charter “absurd.”
Sybiha said Iran’s statements were an attempt to divert attention from Russia’s attacks on civilian shipping in the Black Sea, which would be a focus of an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Monday.
Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Stephen McGrath in Bucharest, Romania, contributed.
In this photo taken Saturday, July 25, 2026 Ukrainian soldiers of Khartia brigade prepare a ground drone for a mission in Kharkiv region, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out a fire in a supermarket following a Russian drone attack in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
This photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service shows a damaged supermarket after Russian drone strikes in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks to staff and media at 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, July 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
FILE - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks od during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
