France contains Bordeaux wildfire as Provence blaze keeps crews on alert

France's vast wildfire near Bordeaux remained contained on Sunday but was still burning after scorching an area four times the size of Paris and forcing 224,000 people to evacuate. Hundreds of kilometres away, a newer blaze in Provence stopped advancing overnight but had not yet been contained.

About 3,000 firefighters remained deployed across the two fire fronts, extinguishing hot spots, cutting firebreaks and securing burned forest as high temperatures and wind threatened to reignite smouldering embers. Prime Minister Sbastien Lecornu said France's wildfires were generally under control, but cautioned that conditions remained highly changeable.

In the Gironde region, the fire burned about 420 square kilometres in just 10 days before authorities said over the weekend that its advance had been stopped. The Gironde prefecture said on Sunday, "The fire is now fixed, which does not mean that the fire is extinguished," using the French firefighting term for a blaze that has been contained within its perimeter. The region remained under France's highest red forest-fire alert, with dry conditions, soaring temperatures in Bordeaux and afternoon winds raising the risk of flames flaring up again. Additional firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were expected on Sunday and Monday to reinforce the operation.

Scientists at World Weather Attribution said in a rapid analysis on Thursday that human-caused climate change had doubled the chances of extreme fire conditions for the flames in France. According to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising at twice the global average rate since the 1980s.

The Gironde fire led to one of the largest peacetime evacuations in modern French history, and many thousands of people remained displaced or unable to return home. In the southeastern Var department, nearly 1,500 firefighters were battling a separate fire that tore through around 18 square kilometres in a little over a day. Authorities said the blaze in the Gros Bessillon hills was stabilised on Sunday morning, meaning its perimeter had not expanded overnight, but it had not been declared contained. Firefighting aircraft were helping crews keep the flames away from villages among vineyards, olive groves and wooded hills in the area known as Green Provence. About 2,500 people were evacuated as the fire threatened communities. The blaze was the fourth major fire to hit central Var since July 19. Earlier in the week, a separate smaller fire near Brignoles forced George Clooney and his family, along with about 700 other residents, to evacuate before it was brought under control.

With both major blazes still posing risks despite slower movement, Lecornu also announced the appointment of a national coordinator to oversee reconstruction in fire-hit areas. More than 1,170 square kilometres have burned across France since the beginning of the year.

With PTI Inputs