Friday was Kadija Saaidi’s 45th birthday. She already suspected that she might have to leave home with her husband and three children that morning, with only the clothes on their backs, to a safe place, away from the flames and columns of toxic smoke, so she decided to celebrate: “I cleared out the village bakeries and invited the neighbors.” At one in the morning, when they received the message from the prefecture [government delegation] of the Gironde department ordering urgent evacuation, she already had some backpacks ready.
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“What we experienced on Friday night was an apocalypse of smoke and ashes. At eleven at night, everything was black. We had to reassure the children and tell them that nothing was happening, but they understand everything. We knew that some municipalities near the fire had been evacuated, but you never think it will happen to you. You have to live it to know the anguish you feel,” explains Kadija at the Bordeaux exhibition center, the place set up to host 6,000 of the 200,000 people evacuated due to the fires that have been shaking the Gironde and Les Landes departments in southwestern France for several days.
The municipality where she lives, Martignas-sur-Jalle, is only 15 kilometers from Bordeaux, and is one of eight in the periphery (totaling 57,000 people) that the prefecture decided to evacuate early Friday morning due to the advance of this forest fire declared north of the tourist bay of Arcachon on Wednesday at noon, and which is now 30 kilometers from Bordeaux, as confirmed on Saturday by the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, at a press conference to report on the situation.
The improvement in weather conditions, less wind and a drop in temperatures, provided some relief and reduced the astonishing speed with which it had spread in the last two days. However, in the afternoon the wind changed direction and once again directed the flames towards Bordeaux. “The fire is dangerous and the situation remains serious, although it has lost virulence (…) We did well to evacuate people,” said the prefect of Gironde and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Sophie Brocas, at another press conference. No new evacuations have been ordered since early Saturday morning. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has indicated that “the next few hours could be difficult” and stressed that the situation is still “critical.”
The flames have already burned 32,700 hectares, destroyed 140 homes, and forced the evacuation of 167,000 people. In addition, 54 firefighters were injured in the extinguishing efforts. Added to this fire is another worrying hotspot in the neighboring department of Les Landes, with 31,000 evacuations and 3,500 hectares burned.
Some of the municipalities on the outskirts of Bordeaux have been evacuated due to the toxicity of the smoke plumes, not because the flames were at their doorstep. Nevertheless, the Interior Minister has said that, although the evacuation of the city, one of the ten most populated in France (268,000 inhabitants), is not on the table, all scenarios are being considered.
“We are not at that point, but what the Prime Minister has asked us to do is to consider all crisis scenarios, including the worst, although our job is to do everything possible to prevent it from happening,” Nuñez indicated.
Along the same lines, the mayor of Bordeaux and president of the region, Thomas Cazenave, stated in an interview with EL PAÍS. “The priority is to assist the residents of the affected municipalities. If we have to go from 5,000 to 10,000 [evacuees], we will. The goal is to accommodate everyone, and we adapt to the circumstances. Our responsibility is to be ready to face any situation,” said Cazenave, who insisted that the fire “is still at the region’s doorstep, advancing.”
He recalled that never before in the region, which has experienced severe fires like those in 2022, had an evacuation of this magnitude occurred. The exhibition park has a capacity for 10,000 people, who have been distributed among the different pavilions. In one of them are Izora C. and Nicola M., both 85 years old, residents of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, another of the evacuated villages a few kilometers from Bordeaux.
Both have physical problems. Izora recently had surgery, and her neighbor walks with difficulty with the aid of a cane. “When something like this happens and you are old and alone, it is something very, very hard, indescribable,” says Nicola. People sleep on mats, and volunteers try to entertain the children. A few meters from the elderly women, Virginie Sans walks her dog, Estella. She was on vacation with her husband in Brittany when her 17-year-old daughter, who was at their home in Eysines, a few kilometers from Bordeaux, told her she had received an SMS to evacuate. They spent the whole night driving to get her out of the house. “We never thought it would get so close to Bordeaux,” she says.
On Saturday afternoon, the Government reconvened the interministerial crisis cabinet. The Minister of Defense, Catherine Vautrin, has agreed to reinforce military aid with 500 more soldiers, bringing the total to 1,500 assisting in the civil protection effort against the disaster, especially in evacuating the area. The Government has ordered the deployment of the Airbus 400M aircraft in Gironde, primarily for military transport, but with a much greater capacity than any hydraulic aircraft, to participate in the extinguishing efforts. It is the first time it has been used for this purpose.
“At this moment when the flames are testing the country, France reveals its nature as a united and supportive people,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a message on social media, before highlighting the mobilization of “all civil and military resources.”
Authorities have explained that the incident has been an unprecedented phenomenon in France because it is a kind of firestorm, “which can cause ember showers and can influence the local climate,” as well as trigger flame tornadoes, according to the head of the Gironde fire department, Marc Vermeulen. It is the most devastating fire of this season and one of the largest the country has suffered. So far this year, fires have ravaged 98,000 hectares, a record.
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