A 2:47 a.m. alert, a rabbit and 220,000 evacuees as France’s wildfire rages on

BORDEAUX, France (AP) — The mobile phone alert message marked “URGENT” came with a beeeeeeep in the dead of night.“Evacuate now,” it said.Suddenly awake, Morgane Bonichot scrambled. She grabbed her 9-year-old daughter, their rabbit and their dog but didn't think to pack underwear.The 40-year-old childcare worker found herself swept up in one of the biggest evacuations Europe has seen since World War II, forced with more than 220,000 other people to flee a monster wildfire in southwest France that has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and is defying a massive effort, involving a dozen countries, to bring it under control.In hindsight, Bonichot thinks maybe she should have seen it coming.Her daughter was in the blaze's epicenter when it ignited last week, staying with an uncle in the midst of the pine forests, scrub and farmland being consumed by an inferno so virulent that it has morphed at times into a self-feeding firestorm, spitting lightning bolts that have sparked yet more flames.Among the fire's first evacuees, the daughter came home Friday. But with the flames spreading closer to her mother's house west of Bordeaux, the daughter began preparing to flee again.“She packed a suitcase with a lot of things, telling me, 'Mum, you need to pack your suitcase because we’re going to have to be evacuated,'” Bonichot said.Just hours later, at 2:47 a.m., she got the evacuation order for their town, Saint-Jean-d’Illac, on her phone.“Forest fire underway,” it said.All told, regional authorities have emptied two dozen towns and villages, some ravaged by fire.

Others between the blaze and Bordeaux, including Saint-Jean-d’Illac, were evacuated as a precaution by government officials who say their priority is making sure that no lives are lost.After a pause in evacuations Monday, when the fire's spread stopped, they resumed Tuesday as flames flared again. An additional 4,000 people were moved from camping sites and holiday homes on the blaze's northern edge, increasing the number of people forced to flee: more than 220,000 in the Gironde region alone. In Spain, historic wildfires have also forced tens of thousands of evacuations, bringing the number displaced in southwest Europe to roughly a third of a million.“We left just like that,” Bonichot said.

“My car had broken down, so neighbors had to drive me, along with my little girl and the animals.