The enormous fire that has been ravaging southwestern France for days and has already burned 42,000 hectares worsened on Saturday afternoon and forced the evacuation of another 55,000 people in the early hours of the morning in municipalities near Bordeaux, meaning that more than 220,000 people have now been displaced in the Gironde department since last Wednesday, when this fire, the largest the country has experienced in 50 years, was declared.
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During Saturday night, the Gironde prefecture decided to extend this preventive measure also to the towns of Marcheprime, Cestas, Mios, Biganos, and Le Barp, all a handful of kilometers from Bordeaux (268,000 inhabitants). Cestas, for example, is only 15 kilometers south of the airport.
These new evacuations add to the 167,000 people who have had to leave their homes or holiday residences since Wednesday in this popular coastal area. About 7,000 are in the Bordeaux exhibition park, which has been set up to accommodate them.
On Saturday morning, the fire had lost intensity, but at night the wind changed direction and redirected the flames towards Bordeaux, making it more violent. Authorities have explained that this is an unprecedented phenomenon that firefighters had never had to fight before: a firestorm that creates its own wind currents and even generates tornadoes.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned yesterday that it will be “very difficult to combat.” “Until it is contained, there will be no return. It must be stabilized, stopped, and treated. Since we operate in environments with abundant vegetation at ground level, a contained fire can reactivate at any time,” he said.
In addition to its virulence, its proximity to Bordeaux is a concern. The Interior Ministry indicated that the Government is working on all possible scenarios, including the evacuation of this city, although it clarified that for now, it is “in that situation.”
Ground resources have been reinforced to combat it: there are 750 firefighters, a thousand military personnel, and 1,700 gendarmes, participating in the operation by assisting with evacuations. Rail traffic has been interrupted between Bordeaux and the south of the country, and more than fifty kilometers of the A-63 highway, which connects Bordeaux with Spain, have been closed.
In the neighboring department of Les Landes, weather conditions have improved, although the large fire that originated a few days ago is still active. The flames have burned 3,500 hectares, and there are 31,000 evacuees. Across the entire territory, more than 100,000 hectares have already burned this year, a record figure in France.
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