Bordeaux wildfires MAPPED as horror blaze threatens ‘overwhelmed’ city of 850,000 | World | News
Firefighters in France have been battling a massive wildfire, with an area around Bordeaux engulfed by huge flames. Bordeaux, a city home to 850,000 people, and the surrounding Gironde region in France are facing an intensifying wildfire threat over the last few days as temperatures continue to rise.
New weather forecasts indicate temperatures will reach around 38C today before climbing further to 41C tomorrow, creating extremely hot and dry conditions that are highly conducive to the spread of wildfires. France’s national weather agency, Météo-France, has also placed Gironde under a yellow heat alert, warning of potentially hazardous temperatures. With the heat expected to peak on Wednesday, the next few hours are considered critical for firefighting operations.
According to French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, wildfires across France have already consumed more than 42,000 hectares of land, an area equivalent to four times the size of Paris.
Remi Lassoureille, who leads the forest fire efforts in Gironde, said an area of around 42,000 hectares has been burnt in the past five or six days, but that has not significantly increased overnight. He added so far, some 240 homes have been destroyed.
Mr Lassoureille said more than 2,000 firefighters are tackling the fire and there has been aerial support from other European countries.
Firefighters have also made large fire breaks at the edges of the fire to try and stop it impacting Bordeaux.
Nicole Quilfen lives in Pessac, a south-western suburb of Bordeaux, where a wildfire burns just a few miles away. The 54-year-old moved from the UK to France more than 25 years ago.
Describing the city as “overwhelmed”, she left a friend’s wedding reception early to prepare for a potential evacuation.
She told BBC: “People are cancelling vacations and leaving.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron described the wildfires raging near the city of Bordeaux as the “toughest since the Second World War”.
After visiting the Gironde region on Monday, he said: “We must understand we are facing a completely unprecedented wildfire. The situation we are dealing with is the most severe we have ever recorded.”
