A village was emptied in southwestern France, a WWII battlefield burned in Germany, and a Croatian resort counted dozens of injured as fires swept Europe.
PARIS—Thousands of Europeans were driven from their homes on Aug. 14 as wildfires fanned by strong winds burned simultaneously in France, Germany, Spain, Greece, and Croatia, after weeks of heat and drought left forests across the continent primed to burn.
In southwestern France, a blaze that broke out early on the afternoon of Aug. 13 near Luglon, a village in the pine forests of the Landes department south of Bordeaux, had burned through some 1,300 hectares (about 3,200 acres) by Friday evening without destroying any homes, according to local officials.
Gilles Clavreul, the prefect of the Landes, said the 550 firefighters deployed had contained the fire’s advance without completely halting it, as its two fronts, southwest and southeast of the village, drew closer to each other.
The fire spread rapidly on shifting winds Thursday afternoon, according to the prefecture, which ordered the preventive evacuation of Luglon’s roughly 400 inhabitants that evening as the flames burned out of control about a mile from the village center.
In all, 550 people from Luglon and neighboring Garein were moved to nearby towns. The cause has not been established, and Clavreul said several hypotheses are being examined.
Crews are supported by eight fixed-wing water bombers and three helicopters, including a heavy-lift Chinook lent by Australia and guided onto priority targets by a Bell 412. The blaze comes only weeks after a late-July fire at Biscarrosse, elsewhere in the Landes, destroyed 3,700 hectares of forest and some 200 houses and other buildings.
Cavreul, who runs a community cafe in the center of Luglon, watched the fire take hold as he returned from the coast on Thursday, the smoke “already very heavy” by early evening.
“From 8 p.m., we were discreetly warned: ‘Don’t say it yet, but we are going to start evacuating the whole village.’ And that is what happened,” he told The Epoch Times.
Cavreul stayed on that night, tracking the flames on an app while the wind blew away from his home, the cars packed in case he had to leave.
After bringing vegetables to the firefighters on Friday morning, with the town hall’s agreement, he planned to return in the evening to help cook for the crews.
“There is a real spirit of solidarity,” he said. “The fire is advancing: it is making jumps of two kilometers (1.2 miles), and rescuers fear the two fronts will merge.”
