Bordeaux prepares for mass evacuation as wildfires threaten city

A massive wildfire tearing through south-west France has forced more than 220,000 people from their homes in the Gironde region alone, in what has become one of the largest evacuation operations in the country's history.

Overnight on Sunday, authorities ordered a further 55,000 residents to leave five localities on the outskirts of Bordeaux as shifting, gusty winds drove the flames closer to the renowned wine city.

The burnt area has swelled to an estimated 162 square miles, roughly four times the size of Paris, after pine forests and scrubland, left bone-dry by successive heatwaves, fuelled the inferno's relentless advance.

A separate blaze in the neighbouring Landes region displaced an additional 30,000 people, pushing the total across France's south-west beyond 250,000.

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Bordeaux's mayor, Thomas Cazenave, told reporters at a displacement shelter that the city had no immediate plans to move its 270,000 inhabitants.

He said: "We're very vigilant. We're ready for anything."

Mr Cazenave described the blaze as sitting "at the gates of the metropolitan area," estimating the fire line at between 25 and 30 kilometres from the city centre and roughly 15 kilometres from the edge of the metropolis, near the town of Martignas-sur-Jalle.

That community of 8,000 residents, perched on the metropolitan area's far western fringe, has already been cleared.

The mayor noted the flames were not currently advancing on the western side of the metropolis, though the fire was thought to have begun accidentally in the village of Saumos on Wednesday.

Interior minister Laurent Nuñez acknowledged on Sunday that Saturday night had been gruelling and that "the situation remains very unfavourable."

The Gironde fire had turned "extremely virulent and unpredictable again" early that evening, he said, generating its own wind and lurching erratically towards the Bordeaux conurbation before calming later in the night.

One firefighter described the blaze as having spawned a pyrocumulonimbus, a fire-induced thunderstorm that "creates its own wind, with whirlwinds, becoming erratic and uncontrollable."

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Some 2,500 firefighters, bolstered by a Swiss contingent, 1,500 soldiers and around 1,200 police officers have been deployed across Gironde, alongside 450 civil security volunteers.

Gusty winds have since subsided and are expected to stay light until at least Tuesday, though temperatures in the worst-affected zones are forecast to climb sharply by midweek.

Across France and Spain combined, wildfires have uprooted more than 375,000 people from their homes, with blazes near Madrid and Valencia triggering mass evacuations on the Spanish side of the border.

Prime Minister Sébastian Lecornu warned late on Saturday that France faced "a historic situation."

He noted that nearly 100,000 hectares had already burned, an unprecedented figure with around thirty fires active simultaneously across the country.

Three men were detained in Gironde on Saturday, suspected of endangering lives; two were accused of launching fireworks.

The final stage of the Tour de France was also shortened as a consequence of the crisis.

Europe remains the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising more than twice as rapidly as the global average.

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