‘Like thousands of matches on fire, except matches were trees’
Beach offers refuge from Côte d’Azur wildfires
BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS, FRANCE • Thousands of tourists and residents have been forced to flee wildfires sweeping through France’s southern Côte d’Azur.
Some tourists spent the night on beaches to escape the fires while other evacuees were put up in gyms and other public spaces.
Ollie Marriage, who has a home near Bormes- les- Mimosas, said the fire was “like an explosion with masses of black smoke ... like thousands of matches on fire, except the matches were trees.”
Diana and John Wardill, originally from Yorkshire in Britain, were forced to abandon their home in Saint-Tropez. “It was shocking. It happened so quickly,” Diana Wardill told the Yorkshire Post. “As soon as the flames touched an umbrella pine, it just crackled up. It sounds a cliche but it was just like a tinder box.”
Dame Joan Collins, the actress, abandoned her house near Saint-Tropez, and Robert Harris, the author of Enigma and Fatherland, said on social media that the fire “added a certain drama” to his holiday after he was evacuated from Bormes.
Backed by planes dropping water and fire retardant, more than 1,000 firefighters battled wildfires that billowed smoke into the sky over the Cote d’Azur.
More than 12,000 people were evacuated.
Dozens of British holidaymakers spent a night sleeping on the beach after being evacuated from a camp site.
“We left all our things,” said Anne Davies, 74. “All we had time to bring was our passports.
“It was cold when we got here last night, at two in the morning. We spent seven- and- a- half hours here without blankets or sleeping bags. Tonight we’ve got sleeping bags, and we’ve bought bread and cheese for supper. It’s not too comfortable but we’re not miserable. It’s the Dunkirk spirit.”
Large swaths of Mediterranean forest have been left bare and blackened after three days of fires.
About 250 trailer homes, a hangar, an atelier and several vehicles were burned in the blazes but no one so far has been injured, according to the prefect of the Var region.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe travelled to Bormes on Wednesday night to fly over the devastated region and meet with firefighters and evacuees.
Tourist Francoise Roparse, who was visiting the south of France, was among the evacuees awakened in the middle of the night who found shelter in a sailing club near Bormes.
“First, it was a bit the panic,” Roparse said. “We tried to gather all important things ... Obviously, we forgot a lot.”
France’s Mediterranean coast is particularly vulnerable to fires, with its massive back- country forests, often dry in the summer, and hot Mistral winds blowing across the sea to fan the flames.
Firefighters said they were exhausted and needed more manpower and equipment.
Hundreds of reinforcements were sent in from around France but the president of the Provence- Alpes-Côtes d’Azur area, Renaud Muselier, said on BFM-TV that “we don’t have enough means.”
Fires were also blazing across parts of bone-dry Portugal and Italy.
In central Portugal on Wednesday, billowing smoke was making visibility too poor to use water- dropping aircraft on the region’s flaming dense pine and eucalyptus forests.
More than 2,300 firefighters with over 700 vehicles were battling 13 blazes, with flames driven by powerful winds.
In Italy wildfires have raged for weeks.
The Coldiretti agriculture lobby said 50 million bees were destroyed along with their hives in fires on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.
IT’S NOT TOO COMFORTABLE BUT WE’RE NOT MISERABLE. IT’S THE DUNKIRK SPIRIT.