Southern France spent Thursday fighting fire on several fronts, as blazes fanned by wind and fueled by weeks of heat forced thousands to flee.
Several fires, thousands displaced
Multiple wildfires broke out across France's Mediterranean south, burning a combined total of more than 1,200 hectares — roughly 3,000 acres — the Washington Post reported. The largest scorched about 900 hectares in the Aude department, with roughly 100 more in neighboring Hérault, while a separate fire consumed hundreds of hectares north of Marseille in Bouches-du-Rhône.
The evacuations were largest in the Var, where about 2,200 residents and vacationers were cleared from campsites near Fréjus as a precaution, Connexion France reported. Combined with evacuations elsewhere, French authorities said roughly 3,000 people were moved to safety. No deaths or serious injuries had been reported by Thursday evening, though officials cautioned the situation was still changing.
Heat and wind fuel the flames
The fires came at the tail of a record-setting heat wave that has gripped much of Europe, leaving vegetation tinder-dry. Strong Mediterranean winds — the mistral and the tramontane — pushed the flames quickly across parched brush and complicated efforts to contain them. Six departments in the south were placed on the highest "red" alert for wildfire risk for Thursday and Friday.
The response was substantial. Authorities deployed up to 800 firefighters with about 150 vehicles in the Aude and Hérault area alone, backed by water-bombing aircraft working the hillsides from above. Rail service between Marseille and nearby Miramas was suspended as flames neared the tracks.
A pattern getting worse
For the region, the danger is familiar and growing. The same corner of France saw a catastrophic fire in the Corbières area last year, and officials have warned that major blazes are arriving earlier in the season than they used to — a shift scientists link to hotter, drier conditions.
Europe's broader heat wave has been deadly in its own right, with health authorities attributing well over 1,000 excess deaths across the continent to high temperatures in recent weeks. The wildfires are the latest, most visible sign of the strain: a landscape baked for weeks, then lit by a spark and driven by the wind. For now, the immediate task is containment — and, officials hope, keeping the toll to property rather than lives.
