French authorities on Tuesday ordered nearly 4,000 vacationers out of campsites and holiday parks around the Atlantic resort of Lacanau, west of Bordeaux, as returning heat threatened firefighters’ tenuous grip on the megafire that has ravaged the Gironde department for a week.
The blaze, which has burned some 104,000 acres (42,000 hectares) of pine forest and scrubland since July 22, remains “stabilized but not contained,” Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, the state’s top official in the department that surrounds Bordeaux, said Tuesday evening, reporting 14 flare-ups across the department during the day.
A fresh outbreak in the commune of Le Barp was being dealt with, she said.
The renewed caution comes as Météo-France forecasts a heat wave sweeping up from the southwest, with highs near 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) and somewhat weaker but drier winds.
Even after a day without any advance of the front, officials warned that smoldering vegetation, rising temperatures, and falling humidity could rekindle outbreaks along the vast perimeter.
The Lacanau evacuees add to some 220,000 people already ordered to leave their homes across Gironde since the blaze began, with more than 240 houses damaged or destroyed.
Fire authorities have warned that it could keep burning for weeks, likely several months, before being fully extinguished.
‘Leave as if It Were the End of Your Stay’
In Lacanau, the evacuation order came at dawn.
“The decision was taken quite early this morning, after an exchange between the mayor and the prefect of Gironde,” Nadine Scherer, director of cabinet at the Lacanau city hall, told The Epoch Times.
“We knew a little before FR-Alert was triggered, which allowed us to take our time.”
FR-Alert is the government system that pushes emergency warnings to cellphones.
City officials called every campsite director to explain the situation.
“We asked vacationers to leave as if it were the end of their stay, without rushing, because there was no absolute urgency,” Scherer said.
The move was preventive. “At this very moment, there is no immediate danger, but the winds may turn tomorrow, which would make the situation more complicated,” she said. “We are really deciding hour by hour.”
At this stage, authorities are not planning to evacuate the town’s nearly 6,000 residents, she said.
Flare-Ups, Arrests, and First Returns
Tuesday’s 14 flare-ups included several near Lège-Cap-Ferret, where water bombers carried out drops, and flames reached the Souge military camp northwest of Bordeaux. Crews have completed 121 of a planned 127 kilometers of firebreaks, about 75 of 79 miles, according to the prefect.
Brocas also announced the first safe returns. Three communes—residents of Le Haillan, Eysines, and the part of Mérignac outside the Bordeaux ring road—evacuated over the weekend but ultimately spared by the flames, could return home if they wish, on the condition that they remain ready to leave again if the megafire reemerges.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Tuesday that 184 people have been taken into custody across France since the start of the summer in connection with the fires.
‘Grandmas Are Working Wonders’
Behind the front line, Lacanau has become a life base for the firefighters. The town opened its festival hall and a gymnasium, where camp beds are set up, and converted the parking lot outside into an open-air canteen serving more than 1,000 meals a day, run around the clock by municipal staff, elected officials, and volunteers.
Crews rotating off the fire eat, shower at the stadium, and sleep on site. A medical post staffed by doctors and nurses treats minor injuries, and masseurs, physical therapists, and osteopaths take shifts.
“When the firefighters come back, they can get on the massage table,” Scherer said.
The mobilization reaches well beyond the town. Farmers and local companies with tanker trucks are shuttling water around the clock so that fire engines never run dry, alongside the DFCI, the regional wildfire defense association, according to Scherer.
Businesses and the army have worked day and night opening firebreaks at strategic points, Scherer said, adding that “it is quite an enormous operation.”
“Grandmas are working wonders; restaurant owners make pizzas for the firefighters every day, and a lady with a crêpe stand makes them nonstop from morning to night,” she added. “There is a real solidarity across the whole community here, and it does us good.”
