Fire crews in France and Spain battling unchecked wildfires that have forced more than 300,000 people to flee were overwhelmed yesterday as the unpredictable blazes advanced.
France’s southwestern city of Bordeaux, at the heart of a region of vineyards, was under threat, with a major highway and train lines cut. In Spain more villages in the fire zone raging west of Madrid were emptied during the night — and a new front opened near the coastal city of Valencia.
France was faced with “a historic situation,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said late on Saturday.
Photo: SDIS33 - Caporal-chef Damien Rembert via AFP
The fire in the southwest and resulting evacuation operation rank among the biggest seen since World War II, authorities said, with more than 250,000 people ordered out of the danger zone.
French Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez yesterday wrote on X that “the situation remains very unfavorable” for fires across France.
More than 5,200 firefighters, soldiers and gendarmes have been mobilised for the inferno in the Gironde region that was moving closer to Bordeaux.
Cestas — a village close to Bordeaux’s southwestern edge — was “deserted” as it braced for flames, with only a few of its 17,000 residents resisting evacuation, Cestas Mayor Jerome Steffe told the BFMTV broadcaster.
“This fire is unpredictable and each time we think we’ve got on top of it unfortunately it surprises us in the worst possible way,” he said. “Right now, it’s impossible to say where the fire will end up.”
The wildfire has forced nearby peak-season holiday spots along the Atlantic coast to be evacuated, and the swath of land reduced to cinders is equivalent to four times the area of Paris.
Houses in the village of Le Porge, near the ocean, were gutted, aerial images showed.
Another wildfire in the adjoining Landes region that had forced 30,000 evacuations was being “better contained — but not yet stopped,” the local prefecture said.
Struggling firefighters were being challenged by “turbulent winds,” a prefecture spokeswoman said.
In Spain, authorities said that winds were pushing wildfires near Madrid to the south, away from the capital, but forcing more evacuations of villages in their path.
Spanish Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that wind speed — forecast to subside — would be crucial to how the firefighting went yesterday.
So far, “weather conditions have been extremely difficult,” he said.
However, a new fire front opened up hundreds in eastern Spain, near the Mediterranean city of Valencia. At least 15,000 people were evacuated there, adding to the tally of 60,000 who had fled the fires near Madrid.
“The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish,” Valencian Government President Juanfran Perez Llorca told reporters late on Saturday.
Pilar Bernabe, the central government delegate to Valencia, wrote on X that “the night was very intense.”
“Weather conditions are expected to deteriorate as the day progresses, so these hours are being used to battle the flames,” she said.
On Saturday, one person was killed near Valencia in a separate, smaller fire. That was the only civilian death so far reported.
In France the death toll was two firefighters killed near Bordeaux on Wednesday.
NEUTRALITY? China’s delivery of 39 T-39D battle tanks to Cambodia risks undermining a fragile truce between the two Southeast Asian countries, the Thai prime minister said Thailand has lodged concerns with China over its recent delivery of tanks to Cambodia, citing the fragility of a ceasefire between the Southeast Asian neighbors following last year’s deadly border clashes. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul raised the concerns with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a meeting on Friday last week, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow told reporters yesterday during the Thai delegation’s visit to China. “Our concern lies in Cambodia’s reporting of the tank delivery. At this time, relations are delicate, and the ceasefire is fragile,” Sihasak said. “Presenting the tank delivery in a way that benefits Cambodia
IGNORING REPORTERS: The Russian envoy had little to say other than ‘nice hairstyle’ after the meeting, in which Rubio said he planned to address the conflict in Ukraine US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday met with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov in the Philippines for talks at which he was expected to renew the prospect of the US brokering an end to the war in Ukraine. The US Department of State offered few details about the meeting on the sidelines of an annual gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers in Manila. “They discussed the US-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war,” a state department spokesperson said in a statement. Russia did not immediately offer a readout and Lavrov largely ignored questions by reporters after he left
‘I’LL TAKE YOU DOWN’: Observers said there have been tensions between Ibrahim Traore and Oumarou Yabre, while the third-in-command has not been seen recently Ibrahim Traore, the head of Burkina Faso’s military junta, last week sought to stamp out speculation of a power struggle at the highest levels of government, warning that he intended to remain the west African country’s only leader. The prolonged absence of two influential junta figures has fueled rumors of a tussle within the military government, which came to power in a coup in September 2022. “There can’t be two captains on one ship,” Traore told community leaders in Ouahigouya on Thursday. “Everyone who works with me knows how I operate,” the 38-year-old captain said. “If anyone screws up, I’ll take you down
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the Central American country would no longer hold elections, eliminating the possibility of an electoral challenge when his term ends next year and further entrenching the rule he shares with his wife. Ortega, who has continuously held power since 2007 following an earlier presidential term in the 1980s, said the move would close off any path to the opposition, although he did not provide details about carrying out the ban. “There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega, 80, said in a speech on Sunday evening
RSS