BORDEAUX, France (AP) \u2014 The mobile phone alert message marked \u201cURGENT\u201d came with a beeeeeeep in the dead of night.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvacuate now,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Suddenly awake, Morgane Bonichot scrambled. She grabbed her 9-year-old daughter, their rabbit and their dog but didn\u2019t think to pack underwear. <\/p>\n
The 40-year-old childcare worker found herself swept up in one of the biggest evacuations<\/a> Europe has seen since World War II, forced with more than 220,000 other people to flee a monster wildfire<\/a> in southwest France that has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and is defying a massive effort, involving a dozen countries<\/a>, to bring it under control.<\/p>\n In hindsight, Bonichot thinks maybe she should have seen it coming. <\/p>\n Her daughter was in the blaze\u2019s epicenter when it ignited last week, staying with an uncle in the midst of the pine forests, scrub and farmland being consumed by an inferno so virulent that it has morphed at times into a self-feeding firestorm<\/a>, spitting lightning bolts that have sparked yet more flames.<\/p>\n Among the fire\u2019s first evacuees, the daughter came home Friday. But with the flames spreading closer to her mother\u2019s house west of Bordeaux, the daughter began preparing to flee again.<\/p>\n \u201cShe packed a suitcase with a lot of things, telling me, \u2018Mum, you need to pack your suitcase because we\u2019re going to have to be evacuated,\u2019\u201d Bonichot said.<\/p>\n Just hours later, at 2:47 a.m., she got the evacuation order for their town, Saint-Jean-d\u2019Illac, on her phone. <\/p>\n \u201cForest fire underway,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n All told, regional authorities have emptied two dozen towns and villages, some ravaged by fire. Others between the blaze and Bordeaux, including Saint-Jean-d\u2019Illac, were evacuated as a precaution by government officials who say their priority is making sure that no lives are lost. <\/p>\n After a pause in evacuations Monday, when the fire\u2019s spread stopped, they resumed Tuesday as flames flared again. An additional 4,000 people were moved from camping sites and holiday homes on the blaze\u2019s northern edge, increasing the number of people forced to flee: more than 220,000 in the Gironde region alone. In Spain, historic wildfires have also forced tens of thousands of evacuations, bringing the number displaced in southwest Europe to roughly a third of a million.<\/p>\n \u201cWe left just like that,\u201d Bonichot said. \u201cMy car had broken down, so neighbors had to drive me, along with my little girl and the animals. But one of the neighbors had a cat, and with the smell of the rabbit it became very complicated. So she had to drop me off.\u201d <\/p>\n After a few days staying with Bonichot\u2019s mother, they moved again, this time to a huge exhibition center in Bordeaux that city authorities have converted into a temporary shelter. It has camp beds, food, medical and veterinary services, clothes and volunteers doing what they can to make people comfortable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire: The rabbit stays in a cage between the mother and daughter\u2019s beds and the dog curls up in a large bowl. After a couple of days in the makeshift conditions, \u201cI\u2019m starting to become really exhausted,\u201d Bonichot said.<\/p>\n But she doesn\u2019t want to go home until she\u2019s sure they won\u2019t be evacuated again. <\/p>\n \u201cI just can\u2019t put my animals through another journey. The only trip they should have to make now is the one back home. Otherwise, for the rabbit, the stress could be fatal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd my dog was dehydrated,\u201d she said. \u201cHere, there\u2019s air conditioning and everything, so for the moment he\u2019s doing a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n Gironde authorities have said evacuees won\u2019t be allowed back until the fire is contained, although on Tuesday they gave the go-ahead for returns to three suburbs of Bordeaux that haven\u2019t had fires. It\u2019s unknown when others might be allowed home. Fire trucks are still racing from one flare-up to the next, as aircraft drop water<\/a> and retardant. Smoke clouds could be seen from kilometers away Tuesday.<\/p>\n
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