More than 320,000 people have now been evacuated across parts of France and Spain as wildfires continue to ravage southern Europe.

In southwestern France, more than 220,000 people have been forced to flee their homes after evacuation orders were issued in a further five villages around Bordeaux on Saturday night, as the parched landscape and strong winds helped the area's main blaze spread rapidly, local authorities said.

As of Saturday evening, the fire had burnt through around 32,700 hectares across the region, per the Gironde prefecture.

The blaze began in the town of Saumos on Tuesday before spreading southwest to the areas of Le Porge and Lège Cap-Ferret later in the week and then eastwards towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area over the weekend.

Around 1,400 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel, and 1,700 security forces have been deployed to tackle the wildfires in southwestern France, with aerial firefighting resources also providing support.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Saturday that five aircraft and two helicopters from the EU's rescEU fleet had been deployed to France.

French government officials say almost 100,000 hectares have burnt across the country since the beginning of the year. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has called the figure a "historic record."

Wildfires are also affecting the departments of Landes, Var, and Hautes-Alpes.

Spain

In Spain, wildfires are continuing to burn throughout the Madrid area and the province of Ávila.

The Spanish government has declared a national emergency over the situation in the two regions, where around 100,000 people have been evacuated.

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According to the Interior Ministry, the EU's civil protection mechanism is making a number of resources available to help support with firefighting efforts.

Italy has sent 14 emergency personnel and two Canadair planes while Portugal has delivered 129 personnel and 41 support vehicles. Greece is also providing a further 33 personnel, two Canadair planes and one support aircraft.

Copernicus is also providing emergency mapping to support the response in both countries.

Francisco Martín Aguirre, the delegate of the Spanish government in the Community of Madrid, said the next few hours were "crucial."

"We are going to make a major effort to protect the various facilities, homes and housing estates in this area, where we have been working for all these hours," Aguirre said in comments to local media.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez added that the priority now was to "safeguard lives, protect communities and fight the fires."

All levels of government are working together to coordinate resources to provide an effective response and help evacuees, he said, adding that affected areas would also receive governmental support during the recovery process.

A fourth heatwave is expected to hit the UK as wildfires tear through parts of the country.

Homes were evacuated as a blaze swept through the Cairngorms National Park in what Police Scotland declared as a major incident, and emergency crews continued to tackle wildfires in Wales.

North Wales and the Upper Severn became the first part of the UK to declare drought status on Thursday, and parts of Exeter, Devon and Usk in Wales met their heatwave thresholds for 20 consecutive days.

No rain has fallen in July in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and West Sussex, and 16 counties have recorded 0.1mm, which "might just be a bit of dew on the grass", said the Met Office's senior operational meteorologist Marco Petagna.

The UK has had 20% of its average July rainfall, which takes into account the wetter areas.

It is "very, very unusual" for a hot and dry spell to last this long, Mr Petagna added.

The dry conditions follow last year's drought summer, as the UK faces more extreme weather fuelled by human-caused climate change, mostly from burning fossil fuels.

Heat alerts are in place across parts of England with officials warning that temperatures are likely to impact on health and wellbeing.

Yellow alerts for the East Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West and West Midlands are in place until 9am on Sunday.

Cooler and fresher weather is expected widely on Sunday, ending the longest running heatwaves with highs of 25C and 26C possible in the South East and high teens and low 20s more widely elsewhere.

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But the heat will climb again at start of the week, with Monday's high forecast at 27C in the South East, just below the area's heatwave threshold of 28C.

Heatwave thresholds will start to be topped the following day, with highs of more than 30C expected until Thursday in the South East.

Next week's heatwave may not be the last of the summer, the Met Office's long range forecast suggests.

"(The weather) is a bit more changeable in the short term, but as we head more into August there are hints that conditions will settle down and become drier again", Mr Petagna said.

Wildfires continue to burn across the Rhinogydd mountains, North Wales, and Blaenavon, South Wales, with the latter affecting 220 hectares.

The past days have also seen blazes on healthland on the Isle of Wight, woodland in the New Forest and fields in Tadley, Hampshire.

Massive forest fires have forced the evacuation of 200,000 people in south-western France and central Spain as flames raged out of control.

Firefighters in Spain admitted the fires were so fast and violent that they could not be tackled head on.

The First Minister has asked for military aid from the UK Government as residents in the highland village of Nethy Bridge are "angry and frustrated" amid evacuation orders due to a nearby wildfire.

More than 500 firefighters have been tackling the blaze which has raged in the Cairngorms National Park for the past 10 days and forced the evacuation of homes in the remote region.

First Minister John Swinney has said the blaze remains a "major and serious" incident but that they were seeing an "improved picture" on Saturday afternoon.

He said: "A request has been made today to the UK Government for military assistance in aerial support that can be used to supplement existing resources that are being deployed to tackle the Cairngorms wildfire and we await a response."

The military is not currently conducting any aerial firefighting operations in the area.

Sandy McCook, chairman of the Nethy Bridge and Vicinity Community Council, said residents of the Cairngorms village could see large plumes of smoke from the wildfire on Friday before they were evacuated.

Speaking to the Press Association on Saturday, Mr McCook said: "Apocalyptic is the word for the pall of smoke that was on the go yesterday."

The smoke has changed direction, and on Saturday at midday he said it was blowing towards Aberdeenshire and the North Sea, but the flames were still "very plain to see" from the outskirts of Nethy Bridge.

Evacuations and smoke advisories are still in place after Police Scotland declared a major incident as emergency services battled the wildfire in the Cairngorms National Park.

Emergency services previously said significantly changed weather conditions, including stronger winds, have contributed to the unpredictable behaviour of the blaze.

In an update on Saturday morning, Police Scotland said residents in a small area of properties north-west of Dorback Lodge (Lain Thatchan) had been evacuated as a precaution.

The Scottish Government said a fire break around the village was established overnight, and new breaks are being constructed as Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) deploys additional resources.

A smoke advisory is also in place for Tomintoul, where residents have been advised to keep windows and doors closed due to smoke from the wildfire.

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"If you are affected by smoke, stay indoors where possible, keep windows and doors closed, and avoid strenuous outdoor activity," SFRS said.

The service also requested more heavy machinery, such as bulldozers, to help with the response.

"Operators who can provide suitable plant machinery to support the ongoing multi-agency response are asked to report to the Village Hall in Nethy Bridge," SFRS said.

On the ground, Mr McCook said there was a major increase in firefighting units from the SFRS in and around the village, plus multiple wildfire response units.

"I think a lot of people are running on adrenaline," he said.

"A lot of people are upset, angry and frustrated at the ongoing situation because the Scottish Government said a week ago [on Wednesday] that they had enough resources to deal with it, and they said on Thursday that the fire was contained.

"My argument with that is, if you said the fire was contained and you had enough resources last Wednesday and Thursday, why are we still fighting it 10 days later and it's still running out of control? It is still not controlled in any way shape or form."

On Saturday, emergency services said there were nine fire appliances at the scene, supported by specialist wildfire resources.

SFRS said it has maintained a "significant operational response" since the wildfire was first reported on July 15.

More than 500 firefighters have tackled the blaze over the last 10 days, alongside specialist wildfire appliances, all-terrain vehicles, helicopter water-bombing operations and partner agencies.

The update came after First Minister John Swinney chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government's Resilience Room (SGoRR) on Friday night.

The meeting was attended by several ministers and representatives from emergency services, including SFRS and Police Scotland.

On Friday, the First Minister told the Press Association: "I would obviously ask people in the region to follow all of the advice that is available and to respect the exclusion zone that's been put in place.

"This is an incident that we felt was moving in a positive direction earlier this week, but with the change of weather circumstances – which is an illustration of just the scale and difficulty of the situation that we are managing – it has moved in the other direction."

His comments came as smoke from the wildfire near Glenmore drifted as far as Aberdeen due to changing wind conditions.

The fire, which broke out near the village of Glenmore on Wednesday last week, led to residents and campsites being evacuated.

It covered about six square kilometres of heather and small trees at its height.

Evacuated residents are being directed to a dedicated respite centre at the Macdonald Aviemore Resort.

Members of the public are asked to avoid affected areas in the Cairngorms National Park. SFRS said the area remains unsafe due to firefighting operations, rapidly changing fire conditions and helicopter activity.

After nearly 26 years, "Chelsea Jane Doe" was finally identified by her name this summer: Tiffany Bradley. The breakthrough closed a decades long search, bringing a long-awaited resolution to a mystery that had languished unsolved.

The case was cracked using investigative genetic genealogy, a combination of DNA analysis and paper trail research that has been used over the past decade to reverse engineer a person's identity. While the technique has typically been used to search for suspects, the same method is providing a voice to the hundreds of unnamed Jane and John Does nationwide like Bradley.

"The fact that we are here today is a miracle," Bradley's niece Shakirah Wiggins said. "It is totally amazing that after 26 years, people care enough to give her a name and return her to her family."

Bradley, 16, was a joyful child with a radiant smile, her family said. She vanished in November 2000, the FBI said. Meanwhile, for decades in Chelsea, Massachusetts, roughly 300 miles away, investigators had only grim fragments of a case — the mutilated remains of a teenage girl discovered in a parking lot, just across the river from Boston, and a killer who admitted to strangling and dismembering her. The culprit was behind bars, but the victim's identity remained out of reach, according to Chelsea police.

The first clue in the case came decades later. Three years ago, a private forensic science company called Othram built a DNA profile for the murdered girl, but because of the condition her body parts were discovered in, the DNA was in "horrible condition," David Mittelman, Othram founder and CEO, said.

In a missing persons case, the first step is to identify viable DNA. Without that vital information, the case can't be worked.

Investigators combed through the DNA and paper trail genealogy research to fill gaps in Bradley's family tree, from newspaper and social media records to genetic analysis.

The FBI used the profile to put together a family tree. They matched Bradley with her brother, confirming the identity of the athletic, girly girl and giving her back her real name.

'That really changed everything'

The mystery of "Chelsea Jane Doe" couldn't have been solved until recently, thanks to advancements in technology and the growing number of people who are uploading DNA into public databases.

For centuries, genealogists have used paper records to build family trees. A couple decades ago, genealogists began using DNA analysis to knock down "genealogical brick walls," where paper trails stop, said CeCe Moore, co-founder of DNA Justice, a nonprofit organization that allows anyone to upload their genetic profile to their DNA database, serving as resource for law enforcement genetic genealogists.

The identification of the Golden State Killer in 2018 was the first time a major public case had been solved through genetic genealogy, according to Moore.

"That really changed everything," Moore said.

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The FBI subsequently created an investigative genetic genealogy team after realizing they could solve more cases with those techniques, Moore said. This led to Bradley's identification, along with dozens of others.

The remains of a 10-week pregnant young woman were identified last month as 15-year-old Cheryl Lynn Edwards, who went missing about 50 years earlier, according to nonprofit DNA Doe Project. In 1975, her body was found in the Mississippi River near Clinton County, Iowa. She had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head, an autopsy found.

Naming her "Jane Clinton Doe," the Iowa Department of Public Safety took the case to the DNA Doe Project, a group of volunteer genetic genealogists.

A team of 16 genealogists put their heads together to work the case over a weekend. Within hours, they identified a couple from Louisiana as the girl's grandparents, the nonprofit said.

They focused their research on the grandparents' children, soon discovering their eldest son had a daughter who "vanished from the records in the 1970s," Trish Bird, a volunteer genetic genealogist who worked on the case, told the DNA Doe Project.

Iowa DPS made contact with a relative of Edwards and confirmed she had gone missing, according to the nonprofit. As part of the last step to cracking the cold case, direct DNA testing confirmed Edwards' identity.

In both Jane Doe cases, investigators relied on public DNA databases to reveal the true identities of the teenagers.

'The system is overwhelmed'

When searching DNA samples, the FBI traditionally uses its Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which compares a DNA sample against all known offenders.

In missing persons cases though, investigators can often hit a dead end.

"Unless you have a suspect in mind, or you got a guess as to who the person is, or you get a lucky match in the database, these cases are unsolvable," Othram founder Mittelman said. "So look at Tiffany (Bradley). How are you going to solve her case? She was found in 2000. She's not a criminal, so why would she be in CODIS?"

This is where public, open-source DNA databases come in.

DNA Justice and GEDmatch allow people to upload their DNA profiles from the providers of DNA tests, like AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage, for free.

As a matter of policy, the large DNA test providers only release data to law enforcement agencies if they're required to by court order or subpoena.

To access data from GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA, though, law enforcement must pay a fee per case upload. Between lab fees, processing costs and getting DNA profiles, the DNA Doe Project advises agencies to budget up to $10,900 per case.

"With reduced funding, agencies prioritize suspect-focused cold cases, leaving John and Jane Doe cases at the bottom of the list," said Margaret Press, co-founder of the DNA Doe Project, chief operating officer of DNA Justice and a pioneer of investigative genetic genealogy.

Funding from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System allowed the ball to roll on Edwards' and Bradley's cases, Moore said. There's been more cross-state and international coordination.

Still, over 15,000 active cases are yet to be solved in the NamUs database. Outstanding cases aren't a failure on the part of investigators, Mittelman said.

"There's an overall infrastructure problem," Mittelman said. "There's massive underfunding and resourcing and prioritization of this problem."

"I think there are too many cases. The system is overwhelmed. We've got to do something different to just make this technology available more broadly."

A person's background can also impact the DNA trail. There are fewer Black people in genealogical databases, Moore said. It's also difficult to trace lineage within the population group.

"The African American community is often more hesitant to assist law enforcement, especially by contributing their DNA or information about their families," Moore said.

And police are more likely to classify a missing Black person as a runaway, leaving the case unreported, Moore said.

The paper trail also often falls short. If a family tree stretches before 1870, investigators are stopped by the "genealogical brick wall of slavery," thanks to a lack of documented paper trails.

Getting the 'answers they deserve'

Moore is hopeful the field of investigative genetic genealogy will expand, allowing genealogists to solve more missing persons cases.

"Now, families don't need to wait years or decades to get answers out of their loved ones, because if we're allowed to use genetic genealogy on that case early, we can provide answers," she said.

On June 3, authorities in Chelsea, including police, FBI and the district attorney's office, announced "Chelsea Jane Doe" had finally been identified as Bradley, a teenager who loved to draw, dance and cheerlead.

"Throughout the years, Tiffany's family never gave up hope that one day they would learn the truth and have the answers they deserved …" said Chelsea Police Chief Keith Houghton, who was a lieutenant when Bradley's body was discovered. "While nothing can undo the tragedy they have endured, we are grateful that after nearly 26 years they can finally have the closure they have been seeking."

Her family, now with the knowledge of what happened to their girl, attended the news conference and thanked everyone involved for not abandoning Bradley's memory to languish in a cold case storage room.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for not letting my baby be a box on a shelf," Bradley's aunt Janet Bradley-Knight said. "Thank you so much for letting us take her safely home."

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Over 300,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires continue to rage across Spain and France.

At least one man has been killed in Spain and dozens others have been injured including at least 68 firefighters in France.

Government officials from both countries have commented on the historic nature of the blaze, with Madrid's regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso describing it as "the worst fire in the history of the region".

"The fires ‌which are hitting our country have reached a level that has never ​been seen before," French ‌prime minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote on X on Saturday.

Lecornu promised that over 1.5 million face masks would be provided as even areas unaffected by the worst of the blaze saw air quality deteriorate and smoke spread.

Below we look at the areas affected and evacuated as a result of the wildfires.

Follow the latest updates here

France

The entirety of the Cap-Ferret peninsula has been cleared as the wildfires spread throughout the Gironde region, burning in Le Porge and Saumos.

The fires appeared to be advancing towards the French city of Bordeaux after the flames continued to spread, with several suburban regions on the city's outskirts evacuated on Saturday morning.

This included the evacuation of large parts of Bordeaux's suburbs, including the areas of Le Haillan, Eysines ​and Merignac.

French officials told Sky News on Sunday that they are considering a total evacuation of the city of Bordeaux - the sixth largest city in the country - if needed.

Local prefect Sophie Broca described the fast-spreading blaze throughout Gironde as an "XXL fire".

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Another major fire began further along the coast near the town of Biscarrosse in the Landes region on Thursday afternoon with several of the surrounding areas also evacuated for safety.

The French army has also been drafted in to help with the crisis as the inferno showed no signs of slowing down.

Over 220,000 people have been evacuated across France as it is experiencing worsening drought conditions following a heatwave and water shortages.

Spain

The government of Spain has declared a national emergency as the worst of the fires burned close to the country's capital of Madrid, which is home to 6.8 million people.

Regional president Ayuso said that that conditions had been made worse by a combination of high temperatures, wind and the merging of blazes.

The Spanish interior ministry reported that a total of 70,000 people had been evacuated from villages outside Madrid.

One man died in Manises, near the Spanish city of Valencia, the ​country's ⁠interior ⁠ministry has said, after he was found in a car ⁠in ​a ravine hundreds of kilometres away from the severe wildfires spreading near Madrid.

While Spain's meteorological agency Aemet said that the fire risk remains at "very high" levels across vast areas of the country and "extreme" in the north-east and east, the threat was "lower that in previous days" in central and western Spain, according to an update on X on Saturday.

Spain's health minister Monica Garcia warned people to be mindful of the air quality across Madrid as she advised residents to stay in doors and pay special attention to vulnerable people.

"Due to the fires, today's air quality in Madrid is not good, with PM2.5 levels well above those recommended by the WHO," she wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

"Avoid physical activity and staying outdoors. If you go outside and there is smoke or ash, use an FFP2/95 mask and goggles to protect your eyes. Seek medical attention if you notice difficulty breathing, chest pain, or shortness of breath.

"Pay special attention to vulnerable people around you. Stay informed through official sources and follow the instructions from emergency services."

Other areas impacted by wildfires include parts of Scotland where a major incident was declared following a blaze in Cairngorms National Park, with smoke drifting as far as Aberdeen nearly 150 miles away. Parts of Italy and Tunisia have also been affected.

Across Brazil's Amazonas state, many families rely on jaraqui for everyday meals. But researchers now say this commonly consumed fish is also showing signs of microplastic contamination.

Because fish is a primary protein source for so many people in the region, the finding is adding to worries about what may be entering local diets.

What's happening?

Mongabay reported on July 20 that, in samples taken from Puraquequara Lake in eastern Manaus, 50% of the jaraqui examined had synthetic plastic particles in their intestines, as TechTimes reported.

In Amazonas, jaraqui is not just a migratory freshwater fish that people eat widely; it is part of daily culture. Some riverside communities consume fish at exceptionally high rates, and this year jaraqui was officially recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Amazonas state.

Findings from elsewhere in the region suggest the problem is much broader than one lake. A peer-reviewed scoping review published in Ambio documented contamination across the basin, including major rivers, urban waterways, floodplains, and mangroves near the river's mouth. It also found that about two-thirds of the affected animals were species commonly eaten by local communities.

Roughly 322,000 tons of plastic waste move through the Amazon River each year, and northern Brazil's limited sewage access and untreated waste continue adding more plastic to local waterways.

Why does it matter?

This issue is about more than the obvious plastic debris seen on the water's surface. While feeding, fish can swallow microplastics, sometimes confusing them for food, and the particles may stay in the gut longer than normal food does.

Researchers are also worried about the contaminants that can travel with those particles. Microplastics may attract and carry pollutants such as PFAS, PCBs, phthalates, and pesticide residues, in what scientists call a "Trojan Horse effect," according to TechTimes.

That risk is particularly serious in places where people eat fish several times a day. Amazonian riverine communities consume 240 to 293 kilograms (529 to 646 pounds) of fish per person each year, among the highest levels in the world. Removing the digestive tract during cleaning may lower some exposure, but it does not fully solve the problem of particles or chemicals that may have moved into tissue.

A major research gap also remains, especially in Indigenous territories and traditional food systems where reliance on local water and wild-caught fish is greatest.

What's being done?

Community groups are trying to reduce the pollution at its source. TechTimes described a June cleanup in which 50 volunteers from NGO Asas de Socorro and the Rede Reviva network removed a dumpster's worth of plastic waste from about 1.5 kilometers (about 0.93 miles) of shoreline at Puraquequara Lake.

There have been some smaller infrastructure gains as well. After pressure from local environmental groups, waste collection in Puraquequara village reportedly rose from once a week to three times a week. Researchers say, however, that scattered fixes like these will not be enough on their own.

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Proposed responses include expanding sewage collection and treatment, making trash pickup more consistent, and improving monitoring of plastic contamination in fish, water, and soil. Protecting mangroves matters too, because they can trap microplastics before the pollution spreads farther — even though that also means the ecosystems themselves are taking on more of the burden.

In communities where fish is central to everyday life, the warning is difficult to dismiss. As Jéssica Fernandes de Melo, a State University of Santa Cruz researcher in ecology and biodiversity conservation, told Mongabay: "Even wild animals that have little contact with people and that live deep in the forest, far away from cities, are already contaminated with microplastics."

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