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\n Nearly 2,000 French firefighters are battling to contain a fast-moving blaze that has burnt through an area bigger than Paris and killed an elderly woman.\n <\/p>\n
\n The 13,000 hectare fire is spread across 15 municipalities and is the country\u2019s biggest of the year so far, local officials said Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe mourn the death of an elderly woman in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, who apparently did not want to leave her home,\u201d Remi Recio, a regional official, told CNN affiliate BFMTV.\n <\/p>\n
\n The blaze, which broke out Tuesday afternoon near Ribaute in the Aude department, has also injured two civilians and seven firefighters, Recio added.\n <\/p>\n
\n About 1,500 firefighters battled the flames overnight, with 320 more reinforcements arriving Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n Christophe Magny, head of the Aude region fire brigade, told BFMTV that extreme weather conditions combining low humidity (25%), wind at more than 30km\/h and temperatures around 35 degree celsius, created ideal conditions for the fire to spread.\n <\/p>\n
\n Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will be travelling to the Aude region on Wednesday afternoon, the interior ministry said.\n <\/p>\n
\n French President Emmanuel Macron said on X Wednesday morning that \u201cthe wildfire in Aude is progressing,\u201d and \u201cin this ordeal, everyone must exercise the utmost caution and follow the authorities\u2019 instructions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Aerial operations had resumed Wednesday morning with four Canadair water bombers, a heavy-lift helicopter capable of carrying four tons of water, and four DASH aircraft assisting ground crews.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe very provisional material toll indicates approximately thirty vehicles burned out and 25 homes affected by the flames. 2,500 homes are currently without power,\u201d said the Aude prefecture in a press release Wednesday. \u201cThe fire remains very active and weather conditions will still be adverse on August 6.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link Nearly 2,000 French firefighters are battling to contain a fast-moving blaze that has burnt…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":123531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-123530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114981737895773328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}