Tourists flee French holiday sites as Spain counts cost of wildfires
Spanish residents who were evacuated from some of the worst wildfires in living memory have begun returning to their homes – but thousands more were ordered to leave in France over fears that a looming heatwave would fan fires that have ripped through the country’s southwest.
Swathes of tinder-dry forests, parched land and property have been destroyed west of the Spanish capital, Madrid, and in France’s Gironde and Landes regions, forcing tens of thousands to head to safety.
Spain’s interior ministry announced the end of evacuation orders for 15 municipalities on Tuesday afternoon – in rare good news.
But around 4000 people were forced to cut short holidays in the French seaside village of Lacanau, in the Gironde area near Bordeaux, after camping sites were told to evacuate as a precaution.
In the past six days, the largest French wildfire since 1949 has raged west of Bordeaux, forcing more than 220,000 people to flee, destroying 240 houses and prompting questions about emergency preparedness.
Sophie Brocas, the government’s top official in Gironde, told reporters the fire had “stabilised ... meaning it is not advancing”, and authorised nearly 60,000 people evacuated from three villages around the city to return.
But she said 14 blazes around it had reignited.
The Telegraph reported that fresh safety concerns were growing as wildfires closed in on missile and rocket factories in France that store high explosives.
At least seven sites holding hazardous substances were situated near the fire fronts – including a 435-hectare facility in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, an evacuated commune in Gironde, which produces propellants for Ariane rockets and strategic missiles.
It is about 20km away from where wildfires are burning.
Another facility, in nearby Sainte-Hélène, produces ammonium perchlorate, a powerful explosive agent.
ArianeGroup, the aerospace company operating the sites, said they had been evacuated and “all necessary measures” were taken to secure them.
Fires also threaten to reach Souge, a strategic military camp in the Bordeaux area that hosts some of France’s most elite military staff.
It is located next to a facility operated by Dassault, an aerospace company that manufactures military and business jets.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared that Spain was “turning the tide and we can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel in the fight against these fires”.
Fernando Casado, mayor of Robledo de Chavela, a village at the northern edge of the flames, was more cautious, calling the fire “a sleeping kitten” at night but “a mighty lion” during the day.
Some 60,000 people were forced to flee the Spanish fires, which have consumed 77,000ha – an area almost the size of New York City.
Europe has been gripped by successive heatwaves and a major drought this year, which scientists have attributed to human-caused climate change.
Extreme heat has parched vegetation that had grown vigorously during wet weather earlier in the year, creating tinderbox conditions.
United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said “the climate alarm is blaring from every direction” and called for a quick end to the use of fossil fuels.
The focus is currently on western Europe but the European Union’s head of crisis management warned extreme heat could also trigger new fires in central Europe.
- AFP
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