French firefighters, backed by international support, continued a major operation on Monday to contain a vast wildfire on France’s Atlantic coast, with authorities reporting that the blaze had not spread significantly overnight.
Following a government crisis meeting, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez stated that the fire was “stabilized” but “not yet under control.”
“It did not spread further during the night,” he said, but the flames continued to rage. Nuñez said 2,500 firefighters, 18 firefighting aircraft and 1,500 soldiers are on the ground.
More than 220,000 people have been brought to safety in the region since Wednesday, including many tourists.
Authorities said further weather developments, including the onset of wind and heat, would be an important factor in firefighting efforts.
Nuñez urged people to avoid travelling to the affected Gironde region, stressing that the danger had not yet passed. Authorities are concerned that a renewed heatwave, forecast to arrive on Tuesday, could worsen conditions.
“I don’t want to give anyone a false sense of security,” the minister said.
President Emmanuel Macron is expected to visit the affected tourist region later on Monday, at the height of the summer holiday season.
Blaze could take weeks or months to fully extinguish
The major fire could continue for “several weeks, even several months” before it is fully extinguished, fire officer David Annotel of the French firefighters’ association told broadcaster France Info.
Firefighting units from across France would need to relieve each other over many weeks and months, he said.
“The upcoming heatwave will worsen the situation and increase the number of operations,” he said.
The fire has now come within 15 kilometres of the city of Bordeaux and destroyed around 42,000 hectares of forest and scrubland. Around 240 homes have been destroyed, authorities said.
A dpa reporter in Bordeaux said thick smoke has spread across a wide area, reducing visibility and making it difficult to breathe. The smell of smoke is widespread, and air quality is severely degraded.
Fires also raging in Spain and Italy
In Italy, emergency services have been battling various fires across several regions since the weekend.
Operations are continuing on the Gargano Peninsula in the southern region of Apulia, where dramatic scenes saw hundreds of tourists evacuated by boat from beaches as flames advanced towards the coast. Firefighting aircraft and ground crews remain deployed in the area.
In the Basilicata region, dozens of people were evacuated from their homes in the municipality of Maratea as a precaution. Blazing fires are also continuing on the large Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia, as well as in the Calabria region.
Meanwhile, Spain has declared a state of emergency in the parts of the country affected by wildfires to speed up the deployment of resources. The Interior Ministry in Madrid put the total number of people affected by evacuations and movement restrictions at around 90,000.
About 77,000 hectares of woodland and scrubland have burned so far. One blaze outside Madrid is potentially becoming the largest in the country’s recent history.
Spain and France have received firefighting planes and helicopters from other European countries to help battle the wildfires.
The support was organized and funded through the bloc’s crisis response mechanism, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
“No country should ever have to face a disaster of this scale alone,” said EU Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib.
