French authorities today ordered around 4,000 people to evacuate tourist areas on the Atlantic coast as rising temperatures threatened to reignite a massive wildfire west of Bordeaux. The Gironde fire, which has burned about 420 square kilometres, was stabilized but still not contained.
The blaze, raging since last week, has been wildly unpredictable, transforming at times into a self-feeding firestorm as it burned through an area four times the size of Paris.
In France, It forced 2 lakh 20 thousand people to evacuate homes and vacation accommodation and injured 93 firefighters. Fire crews continued building firebreaks to stop the blaze from spreading.
Wildfires have forced about one lakh 10 thousand evacuations in Spain also. Spain, facing its fourth heat wave of the summer, continued battling several major blazes, including its largest wildfire on record.
Authorities have evacuated about 79,000 people and ordered another 30,000 to remain in their homes during this unprecedented crisis that prompted the government to declare a national emergency for wildfires for the first time.