BELGIUM PERSPECTIVE

Brussels, July 24, 2026. Images from Gironde and Var are dominating the Belgian press with particular intensity: among the vacationers trapped by the flames are Belgian compatriots. According to VRT NWS, Karen Audoor, a native of Merelbeke, was staying with her family in Cotignac when the fire that started in Pontevès, in the Var, erupted above their vacation home. "We knew it was going to get worse," she recounts. The fire, which broke out on Tuesday, has already reduced 2,500 hectares to ashes and forced the evacuation of nearly 500 people, including the family of Lynn Eggermont, a native of Poelkapelle, who left in an emergency just hours after their arrival.

Further north, in Gironde, the situation worsened in a matter of hours: a fire that started in Saumos saw its surface area multiplied by six in less than three hours, devouring 900 hectares on Wednesday and 4,800 on Thursday, according to the prefecture cited by DH and La Libre. Nearly 20,000 people have been evacuated as a precaution, including the 3,500 occupants of a campsite in Lacanau. A new fire outbreak near Biscarrosse, in the Landes, led to the evacuation of an additional 5,000 people on Thursday evening, despite aerial support from Canadair and a Dash.

In the Var, the fire threatening Cotignac, Correns, and Montfort-sur-Argens has already covered 1,700 hectares and left 2,300 homes without electricity, mobilizing 900 firefighters, according to Prefect Simon Babre, who describes the fire's progression as "at a very high speed".

Southern Europe is not spared: in Spain, 3,500 residents of Aldea del Fresno, near Madrid, had to flee on Thursday, while the Guadalajara fire, the largest of the year in the country with 32,000 hectares burned, remains under surveillance. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reported "22 major fires" since January, four times more than during the same period last year.

For the Belgian press, these fires are not just a summer news story from abroad: according to a study by the World Weather Attribution relayed by La Libre, soil drought will affect "the entire country" within ten days, with agricultural droughts in Western Europe becoming five times more frequent due to climate change. This accumulation of alerts is relaunching the debate on European coordination of aerial firefighting resources in France, Spain, and soon in Belgium.