Southern France Fights Back Against Wildfires as European Heatwave Leaves Landscape Tinder-Dry
By Manon Cruz
LANCON, France, July 2 (Reuters) — More than two thousand firefighters were locked in a desperate battle Thursday against a series of wind-whipped wildfires that tore across France’s Mediterranean coastline, a region still reeling from a punishing European heatwave that left vegetation parched and the landscape primed for fire.
Television footage showed flames consuming warehouses and a yacht in a marina at Canet-en-Roussillon, a town near the Spanish border, as a thick plume of dark smoke drifted over the beach. Local officials said about 1,500 people had been evacuated from campsites and the nearby Perpignan airport was shut down.
Earlier in the day, crews managed to bring two fires under control on the outskirts of Marseille, France’s second-largest city. But they continued to struggle with a larger blaze in the Aude administrative department, where the fire had already scorched roughly 900 hectares. Winds gusting up to 70 km/h complicated the efforts of nearly 700 firefighters on the scene.
The crisis has thrust Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu — whose minority government faces a no-confidence vote Monday, spurred in part by its handling of the heatwave — into the hot seat. After convening an emergency meeting in Marseille, Lecornu said that 8,700 hectares had burned so far this season across France, including 1,200 hectares on Wednesday alone.
France’s meteorological office has warned that another spell of extreme heat could arrive next week, a prospect that health authorities say could deepen the human toll. Even before the latest fires, the previous heatwave — which baked Western Europe for more than a week in late June — was blamed for at least 1,000 excess deaths in the country.
Wildfire risk remains critical
The World Meteorological Organization warned last week that the prolonged record temperatures, sustained low humidity and tinder-dry vegetation would sharply elevate the risk of wildfires — a prediction that is now playing out in real time.
In Canet-en-Roussillon, four helicopters were deployed to support ground crews, while three Canadair water-bombers stood ready for aerial attacks. “Our main concern is the industrial zone, where many buildings contain potentially polluting substances and flammable materials,” Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, the top official in the Pyrenees-Orientales department, told reporters.
The unfolding disaster underscores a grim reality for southern Europe: as heatwaves become more intense and more frequent, the region’s fire season is starting earlier, burning longer, and demanding ever-greater resources. With no significant rain in the forecast and another heat spike looming, the battle is far from over.
(Reporting by Manon Cruz, Alessandro Parodi, Dominique Vidalon and Makini Brice; Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Richard Lough; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Aidan Lewis)