LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — Nearly a week after a devastating wildfire swept through southwestern France’s Atlantic coastal region, firefighting teams continued mop-up operations Friday to extinguish the last smoldering hot spots of a blaze that has already scorched an area four times larger than the entire city of Paris and displaced tens of thousands of residents. Since igniting in Bordeaux’s Gironde department, the inferno has consumed 42,000 hectares — equivalent to roughly 162 square miles — of prime pine forest and popular tourist resort areas, but the blaze has not expanded its reach for several consecutive days, marking a key turning point in the battle against the disaster.
Meteorological shifts have given exhausted fire crews a much-needed reprieve: overnight cooling temperatures and rising humidity levels across the region have reduced the risk of flare-ups and eased the intense strain on first responders. With the fire line holding, teams have shifted their focus to extinguishing persistent hot spots hidden in forest undergrowth and vegetation along the region’s iconic fine-sand dunes.
This wildfire is one of dozens sweeping across Europe amid an unprecedented record-breaking hot summer, which has created tinder-dry conditions that have accelerated the spread of blazes from the Atlantic coastline all the way to the eastern Mediterranean. On Thursday alone, countries across the continent were locked in wildfire response: the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey all reported active large blazes requiring urgent firefighting deployments.
In the Gironde region, the initial outbreak forced 224,000 people to evacuate their homes and businesses to escape the advancing flames. This week, local authorities have gradually lifted evacuation orders, allowing more than 144,000 displaced residents to return to their properties.
French officials struck a tone of cautious optimism on Friday, warning that while the situation is stabilized, the threat is not fully over. “It’s stabilized, but not totally stopped,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told RTL radio in an interview Friday. “Hot spots remain.” Thousands of firefighters remain fully mobilized across the fire zone to respond to any new outbreaks and extinguish remaining embers.
In a show of international solidarity amid the crisis, Nunez announced via a social media post that Ukraine will send 70 trained civil security personnel and 10 specialized firefighting vehicles to France in the coming days to reinforce local response teams and support ongoing containment efforts.