Airborne firefighters and hundreds of emergency crew battled on Wednesday (July 13) to bring under control wildfires in southwestern France, which have already burnt around 1,500 hectares and prompted the evacuation of thousands of tourists as well as residents, Reuters reports.
“It was very fast, the conditions at the start were very unfavourable, with a bit of wind, very hot and very dry," the sub-prefect of Langon district of the Girond department Vincent Perrier said.
"Now, the weather conditions are a bit more favourable because the wind has completely subsided, the temperatures are falling, but despite all that, the fire continued to progress because this is an environment that remains very dry.”
France, already hit by several wildfires over the last few weeks, is suffering - like the rest of Europe - from a second heatwave in as many months.
The biggest of the two Gironde fires is located around the town of Landiras, south of Bordeaux, where roads have been closed and hundreds of people evacuated, with the blaze having already burnt more than 1,000 hectares.
The other one is along the Atlantic Coast, close to the iconic "Dune du Pilat" - the tallest sand dune in Europe - located in the Arcachon Bay area, where 6,000 people from surrounding campsites have been evacuated.
