Europe wildfires: France deploys military cargo plane as wildfire threatens Bordeaux

Lege-Cap Ferret (France): France on Saturday prepared to deploy a specially adapted A400M military cargo aircraft to drop flame retardant on a wildfire threatening Bordea­ux, as authorities battled what Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described as a “long and very difficult” fight.

Wildfires in the Gironde and Landes regions have forced about 1,97,000 people to evacuate. With winds forecast to shift westward, raising the risk of the Gironde blaze moving closer to Bordeaux, firefighters dug trenches, dep­loyed retardants and reinforced containment lines. The fire was 30km west of the city.

The government mobilised hundreds of soldiers, dispatched 1.5 million face masks to protect residents from smoke and ordered evacuations in Bordeaux’s western suburbs and nearby towns.

PM Sebastien Lecornu said the Gironde fire had become so intense it was generating its own winds. He urged residen­ts to obey evacuation orders, saying protecting lives rema­in­ed government’s priority.

In southwestern Fran­ce and central Spain, over 2,60,000 people have been evacuated as heat-fuelled wildfires continue to spread. France is receiving firefighting aircraft and helicopters from Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slov­a­kia, while Spain is being assi­st­ed by Italy, Greece, the Neth­erlands and Portugal.

—AP