France battles largest wildfire in decades, one person killed

By Charlotte Van Campenhout

SAINT-LAURENT-DE-LA-CABRERISSE, France (Reuters) -French firefighters were battling on Wednesday to control the country's biggest wildfire in almost 80 years, with the blaze in the southern Aude region having already swept through an area bigger than Paris.

One person died in the village of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, about 30 kilometers from the city of Perpignan, the prefecture said. The fire, which spread very rapidly through forests and villages, has burnt down at least 25 houses, forcing residents and tourists to flee. Many roads are closed.

"It's a catastrophe of unprecedented scale," Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said as he visited Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse.

So far, over 15,000 hectares have burned. That is similar to the total area that burned across all of France in several of the past years, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said. He added this was the biggest area burnt by one single fire in France since 1949.

The fire moved incredibly fast, leaving no time to prepare, said Dutch national Renate Koot, who was on holidays in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse with her partner and had to flee.

"One moment we were on the phone with our children ... thinking, 'Look, a fire!'. The next, we had to jump in the car and leave, while praying for protection. We didn’t take anything with us and just left," she said. "We're okay. Miraculously."

"It's unbelievable. It's a catastrophe," said Spanish national Issa Medina, as the sound of firefighters echoed in the background. Medina was with her family in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse.

The prefecture said the fire was progressing "very quickly" and that nearly 2,000 firefighters were trying to bring it under control. Around 2,500 households in the area were currently without electricity, it said.

Firefighter spokesman Eric Brocardi told RTL radio the fire was spreading at 5.5 kph (3.4 mph).

HIGH RISK OF FIRES

Officials and experts warned the wind could change direction, further complicating efforts to fight the wildfire.

Scientists say the Mediterranean region's hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires. Once fires start, plentiful dry vegetation and strong winds in the region can cause them to spread rapidly and burn out of control.

"With climate change, the risk of having wildfires is expected to increase during the summer, but also to extend into the autumn and spring, and to spread toward the southwest, the center, and the north of France," said Serge Zaka, a climate and agriculture analyst.

SPAIN, PORTUGAL

Meanwhile, Spain is experiencing a prolonged heatwave since Sunday that was expected to extend into next week, with temperatures reaching 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

The high temperatures have helped to fan several wildfires.

Emergency services on Wednesday were still fighting to put out a blaze in the kitesurfing resort of Tarifa in southern Spain that was believed to have been started when a caravan in a campsite caught fire.

Gusts of wind of up to 50km/h and high temperatures meant that some parts of the fire that had been extinguished were reignited, said Antonio Sanz, interior minister for the regional government of Andalusia.

In Portugal, wildfires have burned through more than 42,000 hectares so far this year, the largest area since 2022 and eight times more than at the same time last year.

More than half of that area was affected in the last two weeks amid high summer temperatures. In the early hours on Wednesday, firefighters managed to control a large blaze that has been raging since Saturday near Vila Real in the north, where the heatwave has brought temperatures up to 40C this week.

(Writing by Ingrid Melander; Reporting by Manon Cruz in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, Gus Trompiz in Paris and Charlotte Van Campenhout in Amsterdam, Charlie Devereux in Madrid, Andrei Khalip in Lisbon, additional reporting by Michel Rose, Geert De Clercq, Benjamin Mallet and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris; Editing by Alison Williams, Alexandra Hudson)