France wildfire contained as 198,000 return, but Greece and Var flare up

Firefighters contained the Gironde wildfire enough for nearly 198,000 residents to return home, even as fires surged again in Var and Greece. The reversals underscored how heat, drought and strong winds can quickly undo hard-won gains.

In Short

• Gironde blaze has scorched 420 square kilometres of pine forest
• Cap Ferret stays mostly empty as hot spots threaten road access
• Crews used tactical burns while monitoring 240 kilometres of buried heat

Firefighters in south-western France kept a vast wildfire within its existing perimeter on Saturday, allowing about 198,000 people to return home after what may have been the country's largest peacetime evacuation. But fresh flare-ups forced thousands of others from their homes in southern France and in Greece.

The contrast between mass returns in France's Gironde region, renewed displacement in the Var and evacuations by sea from a Greek resort showed how quickly days of firefighting progress can be reversed. At their peak, fires in France and Spain alone drove about 330,000 people from homes and holiday sites, stretching firefighters, aircraft and emergency services. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union's Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought dry out vegetation, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.

In Gironde, the fire has burned 420 square kilometres of pine forest west of Bordeaux, an area four times the size of Paris. Firefighters said on Saturday that it remained contained within that perimeter, meaning the flames had not spread beyond the existing boundaries. But it had not been declared fixed, with active sectors and buried hot spots still present.

Several communities remained largely deserted. Authorities kept the forested Cap Ferret peninsula mostly empty because a nearby hot spot could flare up again, threatening its limited road access and trapping residents and tourists. Lt Col Eric Pitault told reporters, "Today, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained." Crews carried out tactical burns overnight, deliberately burning vegetation ahead of active sectors to deprive the main fire of fuel. They still faced about 240 kilometres of fire edges where heat can remain buried underground and erupt again. Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of France's League for the Protection of Birds, told RMC radio that the number of animals affected had already reached the millions.

In the Mediterranean Var region, a fire thought to have stopped advancing raced across 10 square kilometres in six hours on Friday, the prefecture said, moving "faster than a horse at full gallop". The blaze, which had been declared fixed earlier in the week, then spread across the hills again within hours. Var Prefect Simon Babre said the fire "defies understanding". The resurgence meant a fire considered fixed earlier in the week burned another 1,250 hectares in a matter of hours.

Babre told French media on Saturday that defensive lines protecting vulnerable communities held overnight and no additional ground had burned. But the fire remained active. About 2,500 people were still unable to return home, and 1,300 firefighters were deployed. Twenty French departments were under an orange heat warning on Saturday, mostly in the east and south-east. Temperatures of 35 to 39 degrees Celsius were forecast around the Mediterranean, while eight departments faced a high forest-fire risk.

In Greece, hundreds of firefighters were battling on Saturday to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as gale-force winds pushed flames through the coastal area between Athens and Thebes. The fire broke out on Friday near the neighbouring village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued several more evacuation orders on Saturday.

The damage around Porto Germeno was "inconceivable", Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, wrote on Facebook. He estimated that 40 to 50 square kilometres had been affected, though authorities had not released an official figure for the burned area. Reinforcements took the deployment to 420 firefighters, including 20 specialised forest-fire teams, backed by 19 aircraft and 11 helicopters. Local authorities said homes had been destroyed, but a full count was not immediately available. Strong winds continued to fan the flames and hamper aerial operations. Greece's fire service said crews fought 73 blazes on Friday. The Athens region and part of nearby Evia were placed at the highest wildfire alert level on Saturday, with winds forecast to reach 88 kph, conditions that can prevent aircraft from dropping water.

While many people in south-western France were able to return home, the fires in the Var and in Greece showed that shifting winds, heat and dry conditions can quickly overturn firefighting gains, keeping large parts of France and Greece on alert.

With PTI Inputs

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