In a summer of record heat waves, France and Spain are now facing wildfires that have forced the evacuations of more than 300,000 people. In a summer of record heat waves, France and Spain are now facing wildfires that have forced the evacuations of more than 300,000 people. Scientists say that a sharp swing from wet to dry weather, a signature of climate change, helped fuel the blazes. Last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe, which recorded more than 10,000 excess deaths during an unprecedented heat wave. Fires are now burning near Bordeaux, France, and Madrid, Spain, and have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in both countries.