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Bordeaux (France): A fire that destroyed 7,000 hectares of forest in southwestern France near the Arcachon Basin has been contained, after 11 days of efforts by firefighters to put it out, local authorities announced Saturday.
As for the other big fire that broke out in the same area on July 12, the firefighters have not been able to control it yet, but it is not spreading.
These two massive fires burned about 21,000 hectares of forest and forced more than 36,000 people to leave their homes, including 6,000 tourists who were evacuated from the Pella hill camps known as sand dunes, which were later destroyed by the fire.
The district administration said in a statement that “all residents who have been evacuated” precautionaryly from the town where the contained fire broke out in La Teste de Bouches “can now return to their homes.”
The authorities said that the fires did not result in any deaths or injuries.
And in Landeras, about 40 kilometers south of Bordeaux, the fire that has destroyed 13,800 hectares of forest “has not yet been brought under control” due to the risk of its renewal, according to the region’s administration. Nevertheless, it can be said that the fire was “contained”.
Just under a third of the 16,000 people evacuated from municipalities in Landeras have not yet received the green light to return.
Smoke from “massive fires” in this region affected air quality Tuesday in part of France.
Faced with the scale of the crisis and the controversy over how to fight forest fires in France, President Emmanuel Macron visited the region on Wednesday and said the country should equip itself with more firefighting aircraft.