{"id":323914,"date":"2025-08-07T01:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323914\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T01:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:01:09","slug":"deadly-unprecedented-wildfire-rages-in-southwestern-france-dw-08-06-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323914\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly ‘unprecedented’ wildfire rages in southwestern France \u2013 DW \u2013 08\/06\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

French firefighters on Wednesday\u00a0continued to battle\u00a0a\u00a0wildfire<\/a> in the Corbieres hills in southwestern\u00a0France, inland from the Mediterranean coast, which has killed one person.<\/p>\n

The fire in the southern Aude region has already swept through an area larger than the size of Paris, with authorities describing it as the largest\u00a0in nearly 80 years.<\/p>\n

What do we know about the fire?<\/p>\n

The fire started in the town of Ribaute and has spread over 16,000 hectares, the affected Aude prefecture said, in a 9 p.m. (1900 UST) update.<\/p>\n

“It’s a catastrophe of unprecedented scale,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said as he visited Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, adding that this was the biggest area to be burnt in a single fire since 1949.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeA fire has burned nearly 16,000 hectares of forest and scrubland in just a few hoursImage: Idriss Bigou-Gilles\/AFP<\/p>\n

“What is happening today is linked to global warming and linked to drought,” Bayrou added.<\/p>\n

A woman\u00a0in the village of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the city of Perpignan, died in the fire after she refused to evacuate her home.<\/p>\n

Thirteen others were injured, including two seriously. Of those injured, nine are firefighters.<\/p>\n

Some 2,100 firefighters were battling the blaze by late Wednesday, supported by 90 firefighting planes, including water bombers, and 40 helicopters.<\/p>\n

The fire was spreading very rapidly, leading to evacuations by some 1,500 residents and tourists from a resort and the closure of many roads.<\/p>\n

\"AFirefighters work at the scene of a wildfire, near the village of Saint-Laurent-de-la-CabrerisseImage: Securite Civile\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

How did the fire start?<\/p>\n

The blaze started on Tuesday and has spread rapidly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Authorities shut parts of the A9 motorway linking France<\/a> to Spain<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The section between the cities of Perpignan and Narbonne in both directions has been affected, France’s fire agency and Aude department\u00a0said on social media.<\/p>\n

Late Tuesday,\u00a0French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> said on X the fire was progressing and that “all the nation’s resources were mobilized.”<\/p>\n

“The fire is spreading very quickly because the weather conditions are unfavorable. It’s one of the driest areas in the department and the wind is strong,” Lucie Roesch, secretary general of Aude prefecture, told AFP news agency on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were supported by water bomber planes, Aude prefecture said on X.<\/p>\n

\n

A video posted on X Tuesday afternoon by the French Fire Brigade showed flames roaring behind a village and the sky dark with smoke.<\/p>\n

\n

Edited by: Wesley Rahn, Srinivas Mazumdaru<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French firefighters on Wednesday\u00a0continued to battle\u00a0a\u00a0wildfire in the Corbieres hills in southwestern\u00a0France, inland from the Mediterranean coast, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-323914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114984785277526054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323914","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=323914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}