LE PORGE, France (AP) — Firefighters held a vast wildfire inside its perimeter in southwestern France on Saturday, allowing about 198,000 people to return home after what may have been the country’s largest peacetime evacuation, even as renewed fires forced thousands from their homes elsewhere in France and Greece.
In the Mediterranean Var, a fire thought to have stopped advancing raced across 10 square kilometers (4 square miles) in six hours on Friday — “faster than a horse at full gallop,” the prefecture said.
The opposing movements — mass returns in France's Gironde region, renewed displacement in the Var and boat evacuations from a Greek resort — underscored how quickly days of firefighting progress can be reversed.
At their peak, fires in France and Spain alone drove a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, stretching firefighters, aircraft and emergency services across simultaneous crises.
Europe is Earth’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 vegetation, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.
Cap Ferret remains evacuated
The Gironde fire has burned 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of pine forest west of Bordeaux, an area four times the size of Paris.
Firefighters said it remained contained within that perimeter Saturday. But it had not been declared “fixed” — the point at which crews determine that a fire is no longer advancing — and active sectors and buried hot spots persisted.
Several communities remained largely deserted. Authorities kept much of the affluent, forested Cap Ferret peninsula evacuated because a nearby hot spot could flare again, cut its limited road access and trap people allowed back.
“Today, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained,” Lt. Col. Eric Pitault told reporters.
Crews used tactical burns overnight, deliberately consuming vegetation ahead of active sectors. They still faced about 240 kilometers (149 miles) of fire edges where heat can remain buried underground and erupt again.
The fire’s toll extended beyond people and property. Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of France’s League for the Protection of Birds, told RMC radio that animals affected already numbered in the millions.
Fire roars back in southern France
In the Var, defensive lines around the Gros Bessillon fire held overnight and no additional ground burned, Var Prefect Simon Babre told French media Saturday.
But the fire remained active. About 2,500 people were still unable to return home, and 1,300 firefighters were deployed.
The blaze’s sudden return “defies understanding,” Babre said.
Twenty French departments were under an orange heat warning Saturday, mostly in the east and southeast. Temperatures of 35 to 39 C (95 to 102 F) were forecast around the Mediterranean, while eight departments faced a high forest-fire risk.
Gale-force winds batter Greek resort
In Greece, hundreds of firefighters fought Saturday to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as gale-force winds drove flames through the coastal area west of Athens.
The fire broke out Friday near the neighboring village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued further evacuation orders Saturday.
Towering flames devoured thick pine forest around Porto Germeno as smoke blocked out the sun.
“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” said Minas Tzortzanis, a 60-year-old farmer and local resident. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”
Tzortzanis said homes, trees and animals in the forest had been destroyed.
Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, estimated that 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles) had been affected, although authorities had not issued an official burned-area figure.
Nearly 500 firefighters, including crews from France and Romania temporarily stationed in Greece, were backed by 19 water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters. Local authorities said homes had been destroyed, but a complete count was not immediately available.
New fires broke out elsewhere in Greece on Saturday. A blaze east of Nafpaktos prompted evacuation alerts for at least four villages.
“The very strong to gale-force winds continue to create exceptionally difficult conditions,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said. He said extreme turbulence was preventing some aircraft from collecting water or approaching the fires closely enough to make drops.
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Adamson reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, and Michael Varaklas in Porto Germeno, Greece contributed to this report.
