LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — French authorities ordered nearly 4,000 more people to evacuate from Atlantic coast tourist sites Tuesday as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.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 vacation beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said. Firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft battled the renewed flames to keep them from spreading.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 stay away, one family told Le Parisien newspaper it had gone ahead with its trip rather than forfeit a 4,000-euro ($4,558) holiday, while another group debated abandoning a vacation that had cost 650 euros ($741) each.A fire making its own weatherAt its most violent, the Gironde blaze built a gargantuan black thundercloud, electrified and lit from …
France may never have seen an evacuation on this scale in peacetime, as it is “very likely” to be the largest civilian evacuation operation ever carried out in the country. The return of high temperatures is threatening firefighters hold on a vast blaze in the Gironde. Calmer conditions over the last two days have enabled authorities to stabilise the fires but as the region is placed under a yellow heat warning and new evacuation order come into force on July 28, fears are mounting that the blaze could once again spiral out of control.
Residents of 70 Mile House, a community on Highway 97 in B.C.'s Cariboo region, have been told to leave their homes as an evacuation order for a wildfire north of Clinton was expanded Monday. The blaze in the Gironde region has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced 220,000 people to evacuate.Across France and Spain, roughly 330,000 people have been driven from homes and vacation sites by fires of exceptional scale. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Saturday it was “very likely” the largest civilian evacuation operation ever carried out in the country outside war.Firefighters held the Gironde blaze 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, not fixed — held for now, but still capable of breaking loose as temperatures rose and humidity fell.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 BFMTV on Tuesday.
It generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front — the first such storm ever recorded in France.France’s national weather service placed Gironde under a yellow heat warning from midday Tuesday, forecasting inland temperatures of 33 to 35 C (91 to 95 F). Southeast winds were expected across the department, with westerly sea breezes along the coast.Mor… French authorities order evacuation of almost 4,000 people from Lacanau resort amid return of heatwaveEurope live – latest updatesThe evacuation of nearly 4,000 people from tourist sites on France’s Atlantic coast is under way as the return of winds and extreme heat jeopardised firefighters’ battles to contain wildfires raging to the west of Bordeaux.The precautionary evacuation order, which covers campsites, holiday villages and other tourist accommodation around the resort of Lacanau, exacerbated a wildfire emergency described by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the “toughest” situation the country had dealt with “since the second world war”.
Firefighters are braced for a sharp rise in temperatures on Wednesday, which could complicate the containment of wildfires.
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