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More Than 10,000 Evacuated in Southwestern France as Wildfire Spreads
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By Reuters
Published 1 day ago on
July 23, 2026
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A firefighting helicopter flies over a wildfire in a mountain area near Freissinieres and L'Argentiere-la-Bessee in the Hautes-Alpes as drought conditions worsen following a heatwave and water shortages across much of France, July 22, 2026. (REUTERS/Alexandre Dimou; REUTERS Video)

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More than 10,000 people were evacuated overnight in southwestern France as a rapidly spreading wildfire scorched through 2,000 hectares of land west of the city of Bordeaux, officials said on Thursday.

Wildfires have burnt more land in Europe already this year than the annual average in the past two decades, data shows, as the world’s fastest-warming continent has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves so far this year.

Five hundred firefighters are battling to control the blaze, the prefecture said, adding that the wildfire was very rough, but that no one has been injured so far.

The wildfire is located near the Arcachon Bay area, a tourist hotspot, and many of those evacuated are tourists staying in camping sites.

(Reporting by Stephane Mahé , Zhifan Liu, Dominique Vidalon; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

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