This aerial view taken from a Civil Security helicopter shows smoke billowing from a burning forested area next to a field near Ares, southwestern France.
French authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from tourist sites along its Atlantic coast on July 29, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux .
Fresh flames erupted late July 28 near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lege-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. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.
She said that about 60,000 residents who were evacuated as a precaution from Le Haillan and parts of Merignac and Eysines outside Bordeaux’s ring road could return. No fires had broken out in the three areas, but residents were told to keep their mobile phones on and emergency bags packed.
The opposing movements, with thousands ordered out of coastal resorts while those returning told to be on the alert, underscored how precarious the fire’s hold remained.
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.
