More than 50,000 additional residents were ordered to leave villages around Bordeaux, which is now threatened by flames, bringing the total number of evacuees due to this fire alone to over 220,000. Tens of thousands of people were also evacuated due to other forest fires in France and central Spain.
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Regional officials stated that due to strong winds spreading the flames, a 60-kilometer section of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border had to be closed. The railway company SNCF announced that it had also suspended train traffic south of Bordeaux.
The fire “will take a long time to control,” and until it is localized, evacuated residents and tourists “will not be able to return,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told the newspaper “La Tribune” on Sunday.
The regional prefecture informed that the fire has already destroyed about 42,000 hectares of forest, making this fire one of the largest in France since World War II. A fire in 1949 devastated about 50,000 hectares.
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The French army sent 1,500 soldiers to assist hundreds of exhausted firefighters who have been battling the flames for almost a week.
The heat from the flames creates vortices, making the fire “unpredictable and difficult to control,” said fire captain Nicolas Brazas, one of the operation commanders.
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