French Riviera | Violent fires, evacuations and desolate scenes

On the road crossing the Massif des Moores, the forest area and Scrubland were popular with tourists, power lines lay on the ground, poles burned, like wires in places, the AFP team found.

“The fire is not under control at the moment,” a local fire official said.

Elysee announced that French President Emmanuel Macron was due to travel to the area, Le Luc, in the afternoon, especially to meet with rescue teams.

“Thousands of people were evacuated as a precautionary measure, but no casualties were reported. About 750 firefighters are battling the blaze, which is still very serious,” said a spokesman for the Department of Fire, one of France’s most popular tourist destinations, in August.

Nearly 1,300 people, mostly holiday makers from the neighboring campus, were welcomed at the gymnasium in Bormes-les-Mimosas.

Their preventive evacuation took place peacefully overnight, they testified to AFP.

Relatively untouched by the recent fires in many Mediterranean countries from Turkey to Morocco over Greece and Algeria, France is experiencing the largest fires in the summer.

Portugal was also affected Tuesday by a large wildfire that broke out the previous day in the Algarve (southern) tourist area, causing minor injuries to firefighters and leading to the evacuation of a dozen hamlets, local officials said.

In neighboring Spain, the fire that started Saturday in Navalcruz near Avila was “active” at “dangerous level 2”, but its evolution now qualifies as “favorable”, Castile and Lyon region officials said. . The wildfire destroyed at least 12,000 hectares and caused the evacuation of nearly a thousand residents this weekend.

In southeastern France, in the heart of the Plain des Maurs National Nature Reserve, fires broke out Monday afternoon, with firefighters trying to recover after spending a night fighting the blaze, AFP journalists said.

“A very difficult fight”

“The fire is very big, it’s a very difficult fight,” Commander Delphine Vianco told AFP, referring to “unfavorable conditions, strong winds and high temperatures.”

Significant damage to the environment: “Half of the Plain des Moores Nature Reserve was destroyed. This is a disaster because it is one of the last places to shelter the Herman turtle, “said Kancha Aguero, deputy director of the French Biodiversity Office, a protected species.

Tens of thousands of evacuees took place in the hinterland of Cavalier and Saint-Tropez, Commander Vianco said.

Weir’s prefecture confirmed the evacuation of several campsites and demanded that “do not clutter the roads around Saint-Tropez Gulf” to allow rescue work.

People so vacated stay in municipal halls.

The blaze, which began Monday in a motorway recreation area about 100 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Toulon, engulfed 3,500 hectares of forest and shrubs in Massif des Mours on Tuesday morning, firefighters said.

After some campers preferred to flee from the fires, spending a difficult night, the three families hurriedly left the camp site in La Mal సోమవారం on Monday evening, not far from Cavalier: “We first began to see the smell of smoke. 7 pm (1 pm EDT), then we saw fires on the hill. We were skeptical, but when we saw it, we decided to leave, “said Cindy Thains, an AFP interviewer in Cogolin.