LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — French authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from Atlantic coast tourist sites Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.Fire crews held the blaze in the Gironde region in check through a calm night, bringing flare-ups near coastal dunes under control and keeping the burned area unchanged at 420 square kilometers (162 square miles). Authorities called the fire stabilized, but not contained, and said it was still capable of breaking loose as temperatures rose and humidity fell.Fresh flames erupted later Tuesday near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said. A fleet of 23 planes and helicopters — up from 18 — dropped water and fire retardant as crews fought to keep the renewed flames from spreading.“The situation remains complicated.
We’re not out of the woods,” Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.Brocas said residents evacuated from three communities near Bordeaux where no fires had broken out were being allowed to go home, but only if they kept their mobile phones on and an emergency bag packed.Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by huge wildfires. Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer, with several blazes still burning out of control, including the largest in its recorded history.Even so, Spanish authorities began lifting evacuation and stay-at-home orders for thousands of people after firefighters made progress overnight.The Gironde fire has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said it is “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation operation carried out in the country outside war.Evacuations don't deter some vacationersThe precautionary evacuation order covered campsites, holiday villages, tourist residences and leisure parks around the resort of Lacanau, Gironde regional authorities said.“We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told the BFMTV broadcast network Tuesday.
“We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.”Even as nearby homes burned and authorities urged tourists to s… Authorities have ordered more than 4,000 more people to evacuate from Atlantic coast tourist sites Tuesday as returning heat threatened firefighters’ hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.
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