France must fight the climate crisis “more than ever” but must also learn to adapt, the French prime minister said, as she met with authorities battling a huge forest fire that continued to burn southwestern pine forests and has forced more evacuations. more than 10,000 people.
As more than 1,000 firefighters battled the raging Landiras blaze south of Bordeaux, with hundreds of reinforcements expected, Élisabeth Borne said: “More than ever we must continue to fight climate breakdown.” He added that from September, he will oversee a form of “environmental planning” to ensure France adapts to new climate situations, as well as the planting of new forests.
Élisabeth Borne meets firefighters near the site of a forest fire in Hostens on Thursday. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images
Local authorities said the massive fire, which broke out on Tuesday, had destroyed more than 6,800 hectares (16,800 acres) of forest in the Gironde area and neighboring Landes. Gironde had already seen about 15,000 hectares of pine forest destroyed in July before the same fire broke out again this week and razed forests.
Firefighters compared the fire to an entity with a life of its own. “It’s an ogre, it’s a monster,” Gregory Allione of the French fire service FNSPF told RTL radio.
Authorities warned of an “explosive cocktail” of weather conditions, with wind and a dry tinder box helping fan the flames.
“Conditions are particularly difficult: vegetation and soil are exceptionally dry,” the local prefect’s office said in a statement, warning that extreme dry heat was likely until at least Sunday. “There is a very serious risk of new outbreaks.”
Temperatures in the region could top 40C on Thursday, forecasters predicted.
Officials are warning the wildfire could spread across the country’s dry southwest, where flames have burned swaths of land this week. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
Overnight, darkening skies had glowed orange above the burning forests, and local residents faced another night of anguish as the fire advanced.
“You think we’re in California, it’s huge… And they’re used to wildfires here, but we’re being overwhelmed from all sides — nobody could have expected it,” Remy Lahay, a firefighter deployed near Hostens in the Landes de Gascogne Natural Park, he told Agence France-Presse.
Firefighters work through the night at the scene of the fire. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
Firefighters said they had managed to save the village of Belin-Béliet, which was transformed into a ghost town after police told residents to evacuate as the flames approached. “We fought all night to prevent the fire from spreading, especially to defend the village of Belin-Béliet,” said Arnaud Mendousse of the Gironde fire and rescue service.
In nearby Hostens, Allisson Fayol and his father stayed at home, with their bags packed in case they had to make a hasty departure.
“There is still a lot of smoke, but for now it is not coming,” Fayol told Reuters, after seeing many of his neighbors leave their homes overnight.
Near the fire, the village of Belin-Béliet has become a ghost town after police evacuated residents. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
The Landiras fire originally broke out in July, the driest month seen in France since 1961, destroying a swath of forest and forcing thousands to evacuate before it was contained. But local authorities said it had never been extinguished, but had continued to smolder in dry pine forests, where it was contained deep in peat soil, before reigniting this week.
Due to the intensity of the fire there are suspicions of ‘criminal intervention’, says Borne. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
Asked if the fire may have sparked the rekindling of the fire this week, Borne said that “given the brutality” of the fire, there could be “suspicion of criminal involvement,” but did not elaborate.
From his holiday home on the Mediterranean coast, French President Emmanuel Macron said of the firefighters: “These firemen are our heroes.” He thanked Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Austria for coming to France’s aid. The government said Sweden and Italy were also sending firefighting planes to help.