Bordeaux faces total evacuation as wildfires rage in France, Spain, Italy
Firefighters in France are battling an “unpredictable” blaze close to Bordeaux, while Spain struggles with its own fiery battle and Italy is also suffering.
Evacuations from danger zones in France and Spain have reached well over 325,000 people – and the residents of Bordeaux might be forced to abandon their city.
The forest infernos, raging for days unchecked in France’s southwest and in central Spain near Madrid, are among the worst each nation has seen in peacetime.
France’s major fire has caused an unprecedented “pyrocumulonimbus” cloud: a gigantic fire cloud that creates its own lightning and winds that cause and fan more blazes, according to the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF).
FNSPF spokesman Eric Brocardi said: “It’s a David-versus-Goliath scenario: the idea is that, at some point, we’ll find a weak spot and strike there.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has called a crisis cabinet meeting to discuss responses to the fires.
The Daily Telegraph reported that wildfires were within 20km of Bordeaux, where officials were considering a total evacuation of the city.
Thomas Cazenave, the mayor, said the fire was “at the city’s gates” and warned he was “preparing for all eventualities”.
Already, 50,000 people in the suburbs had been ordered to leave. The city council was considering extending the emergency measures to Bordeaux itself, which is France’s ninth-largest city and home to 270,000 people.
Spanish officials voiced optimism they were starting to get a grip on some of their fires – though at the weekend they were confronted with a new fire front, near the eastern coastal city of Valencia, which forced 15,000 people to flee.
A Spanish cabinet member said the fire around the town of Avila was the largest in the country’s history.
Other EU countries have been sending help to Spain and France in the form of aircraft, fire crews and vehicles.
Scientists say that such weather emergencies are being made more extreme and frequent by climate change.
Hundreds of people in Italy were evacuated by sea over the weekend as a wildfire swept through parts of the southern Adriatic coast.
Evacuees were being rescued from the area around the town of Peschici in the southern Puglia region.
A coastguard statement said: “More than 400 tourists and beachgoers have been evacuated by sea, the only viable evacuation route.
Six coastguard vessels, three boats from Italy’s financial police and around 10 private vessels were involved in the operation, the coastguard said.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned “the situation remains very unfavourable” for fires across the country.
He added that the main fire in the southwest Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located, was “extremely intense and unpredictable ... generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area.”
A forest ablaze near El Tiemblo, 80km west of Madrid. Photo / AFP
Meanwhile, French weather forecasters say another heatwave could hit the country this week, with temperatures reaching 40C in parts of the country.
Some 2500 firefighters, 1500 military personnel and around 1200 police have been deployed to the Gironde region.
In Spain, the head of the civil protection service said the country was fighting a “monster”.
Virginia Barcones told state broadcaster TVE: “Across this national wildfire crisis, we are dealing with a perimeter of 280km encompassing 77,000 hectares.”
King Felipe VI, visiting an emergency shelter for evacuees on Madrid’s western outskirts, said the wildfires had caused “incalculable” damage to his country’s natural heritage.
Around 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the Madrid region, Avila, Toledo and from the eastern region of Castellon in Valencia.
- AFP
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