{"id":1111581,"date":"2026-07-26T03:07:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1111581\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T03:07:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:07:28","slug":"we-fled-frances-wildfires-by-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1111581\/","title":{"rendered":"We fled France’s wildfires by boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British father and his daughter fled the wildfires raging in France<\/a> by escaping on a boat in a \u201cmini-Dunkirk<\/a>\u201d as flames threatened to cut off a popular tourist area.<\/p>\n

Ben Sturnham, 50, and his eight-year-old daughter Allegra were on a week-long holiday at the Cap Ferret peninsula, 40 miles west of Bordeaux, when blazes ripped through <\/a>the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

As the flames grew nearer, ash rained down on the luxury destination with French authorities giving the order for a total evacuation of the area on the Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, they managed to board a last-minute private taxi boat across the bay after fire left smoke billowing \u201clike a mushroom cloud\u201d , said Mr Sturnham, who lives in London and Bristol.<\/p>\n

Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to flee homes and holiday accommodation in south-west France as wildfires<\/a> rip through the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were two fires, one at the top of the peninsula and one on the other side, just raging constantly for the last two days we were there,\u201d Mr Sturnham told The i Paper.<\/p>\n

\"BenMr Sturnham and his daughter were able to board a boat that carried them across the bay on Friday morning (Photo: Ben Sturnham)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then this \u2013 it was like a mushroom cloud. It didn\u2019t look sinister, we thought it was rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then this cloud on Wednesday to Thursday grew significantly, and then we realised clearly it was smoke. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn Thursday, Friday, sitting in Cap Ferret, right on the tip of the peninsula, in bars and restaurants, there was ash coming down out of the sky. People were really concerned because it was shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 3am on Friday morning, he was woken by his friend they were staying with who said an evacuation order had been issued. <\/p>\n

In tinder-box conditions, the fast-moving blaze in the Gironde region had breached a defensive containment line established by firefighters around 1am.<\/p>\n

\"AA volunteer directs holidaymakers from L\u00e8ge-Cap-Ferret upon their arrival in Arcachon by boat during the evacuation operation of the entire Cap-Ferret peninsula (Photo: Romain Perrocheau\/AFP)<\/p>\n

French interior minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez said 40,000 people were being evacuated from Cap Ferret as 800 firefighters battled the blaze just to the north.<\/p>\n

But with no taxis available and the road out \u201cabsolutely jammed\u201d the only route out was by boarding a boat and crossing the bay to the town of Arcachon so they could reach the airport to catch their flight home later that day.<\/p>\n

Mr Sturnham and his friend, who was with his five-year-old child, left the house and headed to the pier where he had paid for a private taxi boat. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a real fear \u2013 not panic, but there was a real sense of concern. No boats, people queuing up with suitcases,\u201d said Mr Sturnham.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole of Cap Ferret was packing up at three, four in the morning. You could see people rushing to their cars, putting suitcases in and trying to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the pier, there was \u201cmassive queuing\u201d as people scrambled to get away from Cap Ferret, which is known as the French Hamptons, the upscale resort on the US East Cost.<\/p>\n

\"***Holidaymakers on the beach of Moutchic on the shore of Lake Lacanau as clouds of smoke rise into the sky from the Gironde wildfire (Photo: Maximilien Lamy\/AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy boat was going first, so I had to speak to my French contact to say, \u2018Look, I\u2019ve got a taxi boat with two suitcases and a child. I\u2019m English. I don\u2019t speak French. I don\u2019t want everyone to think that I\u2019m suddenly jumping a queue.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he walked me up and said in French, \u2018Don\u2019t panic. This is mon ami, my friend. He has a private boat for 6.30am\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven walking to the front of the queue, I felt bad. You get a sense that other people were getting twitchy. You couldn\u2019t see the flames, but there was just real anxiety in terms of \u2018shit, we\u2019ve got to get across the other side\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe somehow by the skin of our teeth got out just in time. I\u2019ve never experienced anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His friend managed to drive his family up the one road out of Cap Ferret, but the journey took three hours.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Acrid smoke\u2019 in Bordeaux as British residents join thousands fleeing <\/p>\n

Graham White, president of the British Bordeaux Community, says several members of the expat group have been forced to flee their homes as the wildfires rage.<\/p>\n

On Saturday morning, he could see smoke from the fires from his city centre home in Bordeaux, where authorities gave the order to evacuate suburbs.<\/p>\n

\"CORRECTIONHuge clouds of smoke fill the sky as wildfires rage close to Bordeaux (Photo: Maximilen Lamy\/AFP)<\/p>\n

He had started packing bags in case he is also told to leave his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil six o\u2019clock last night, in terms of where we live, we heard no effects of the fire whatsoever, and then at six o\u2019clock the acrid smoke started to come across,\u201d he told The i Paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody else around us just closed up shop. Everything, all windows closed, doors closed, and it\u2019s been like that ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends of his were evacuated on Friday night from Biscarrosse, about 50 miles from Bordeaux.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mr Sturnham paid \u20ac250 for the boat to make a 12-minute journey across the water to Arcachon, where he had a taxi booked to take them to Bordeaux airport, which cost another \u20ac200 and returned to UK on Friday after flying from France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis thing certainly wasn\u2019t a luxury speedboat, it was like a little tug-boat. It was just me and Allegra on there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was saying, \u2018Daddy, this is amazing\u2019, at 6 o\u2019clock in the morning, buzzing across the Channel. But then I was looking at the fire raging, and the sky was gray.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a mini-Dunkirk. Cap Ferret is not isolated. But one road in, one road out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s why the French authorities were probably so concerned because if that fire started coming down and into the peninsula, you\u2019ve got nowhere to go. It could have been an absolute catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British father and his daughter fled the wildfires raging in France by escaping on a boat in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1111582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,12824,393,91835,20291,36,58732,4884,16,15,732],"class_list":["post-1111581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-bristol","tag-britain","tag-brits-abroad","tag-england","tag-europe-heatwave","tag-expats","tag-france","tag-france-travel","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wildfires"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116984077814360922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1111581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1111582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1111581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1111581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1111581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}