French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula on Friday, sending boats to ferry hundreds of people to safety as a fast-moving wildfire threatened one of the country’s best-known summer tourist destinations on the Atlantic coast.
More than 400 people had been taken off the peninsula by boat by Friday morning, according to local authorities, as officials warned that all remaining residents and visitors must leave immediately, either by boat or via the single road connecting the peninsula to the mainland.
Sophie Brocas, the prefect for the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, said the “final phase” of the evacuation began early Friday, with boats running from piers in four villages on the peninsula between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. local time. She said roughly 10,000 visitors had already been evacuated overnight Wednesday, bringing the total number moved out of the area to around 20,000.
The fire, which broke out Tuesday near the town of Saumos in the Gironde department, has burned through some 8,700 hectares (about 21,500 acres) — an area roughly one and a half times the size of Manhattan — and was still spreading overnight, fire officials said. Two firefighters died Tuesday battling a related blaze near Bordeaux’s airport, though no additional injuries had been reported as of Friday morning.
Cap Ferret, home to numerous high-value properties and packed with tourists at campsites and rental homes during the peak summer season, sits west of Bordeaux along France’s Atlantic coastline. The scale of the evacuation order underscored the severity of the threat facing the peninsula.
President Emmanuel Macron, who described the situation in the Gironde region as “very tense,” said France had requested assistance through the European Union’s civil protection mechanism. He said the country expected reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair water-bomber aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor planes, and two heavy Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Gironde fire is one of several wildfires burning across France and elsewhere in Europe this week. In Spain, the government declared a national emergency as fires burned out of control in several areas near Madrid. Officials across the region have linked the intensity of this summer’s fire season to three successive heatwaves that have deepened drought conditions and left vegetation exceptionally dry, contributing to more land burned so far this year than the 20-year annual average.
