PARIS — France prepared Saturday to deploy a specially adapted A400M military cargo aircraft to drop flame retardants on a massive wildfire threatening Bordeaux, as fires across France and Spain forced more than 250,000 people from their homes this week.
French authorities have ordered evacuations from parts of Bordeaux’s western suburbs and nearby towns as the fast-moving blaze in the Gironde region advanced toward the city, fueled by shifting winds, extreme heat and dry conditions.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the A400M aircraft would join what he described as a “long and very difficult” battle against the fire, which was burning about 30 kilometers west of Bordeaux.
Firefighters were digging trenches, deploying flame retardants and taking other measures to slow the fire’s advance, while the government mobilized hundreds of soldiers and rushed 1.5 million protective face masks to the region to shield residents from heavy smoke.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the Gironde wildfire as unprecedented, saying it had become so intense that it was generating its own winds.
“Our priority is clear: protecting human lives,” Lecornu said, urging residents to comply immediately with evacuation orders.
The Gironde fire, which broke out Wednesday near the Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast, has expanded rapidly under strong westerly winds. Authorities issued emergency mobile phone alerts ordering residents to leave affected areas, including parts of Le Haillan, Eysines and Mérignac, where Bordeaux Airport is located. The airport remained open, although bus and tram services were suspended.
Across southern Europe, wildfires have displaced more than a quarter of a million people this week, including about 70,000 evacuees in central Spain.
The scale and intensity of the fires have caught authorities off guard. In France, some residents fled coastal towns by boat as flames swept toward the Atlantic shoreline, while Spanish firefighters said several blazes spread too quickly to be attacked directly.
Dozens of French firefighters have been injured, but authorities reported no deaths in either France or Spain despite widespread evacuations and rapidly changing fire conditions.
Spain has already recorded about 130,000 hectares of burned forest this year, exceeding the country’s decade-long annual average of 100,000 hectares, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said during a visit to a wildfire command center west of Madrid.
Sánchez said cooler temperatures and lighter winds had created “a window of opportunity” for firefighters to gain control of the blazes.
Several European countries have deployed aircraft and personnel to assist firefighting efforts. Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal have sent firefighting aircraft to Spain, while France is receiving additional water-bombing planes from Croatia and Portugal, along with heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Residents near Bordeaux described the scale of the evacuation as unprecedented.
“It’s quite impressive and even frightening,” said Laurent Moretti, a resident of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before.”
Source: Saudi Gazette