France and Spain continue to battle fires as new heatwave looms

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said one forest fire in southwest France had been "contained" even as another, much bigger one near Bordeaux continued to rage, and western Europe braced for new heatwaves this week. France and Spain are battling the worst wildfires in living memory, which have ripped through hundreds of hectares of woodland, destroying properties and forcing evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people. The return of searing temperatures, from Tuesday in France and from Wednesday in Spain, threaten to complicate fire-fighting efforts. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the coming hours would be "absolutely decisive" to bring fires burning west of the capital, Madrid, under control. Macron, on a visit to a crisis centre in the winemaking capital of Bordeaux, said: "The coming weeks will be tough and we have to hold out." That southwestern city, in the Gironde region, lies just short distance from a vast and turbulent wildfire that is creating its own winds and sparking fresh blazes around it. That unchecked, gigantic blaze -- which has created a rare pyrocumulonimbus cloud packing lightning -- has over the past six days ravaged 42,00...