Firefighters in France battle to prevent huge blaze from approaching Bordeaux

Authorities are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in south-west France that has consumed an area of land four times the size of Paris. Efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region, where nearly 220,000 people have been evacuated, were hampered by windy conditions on Saturday night. Wildfires have forced more than 375,000 people to flee their homes in France and Spain. Bordeaux's mayor, Thomas Cazenave, described the Gironde blaze as being at the gates of the metropolitan area, between 15 and 20 miles from the city itself, which has a population of 268,000. An evacuation of the city was not on the cards, he said. Nearly 260,000 people have been evacuated across France as a whole, including 36,000 ordered to leave another wildfire zone in the Landes region further south earlier this week. Nunez said the Gironde fire had become extremely virulent and unpredictable again early on Saturday night, generating its own wind and spreading erratically towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. He said another five Gironde municipalities had been evacuated overnight. Nearly 100,000 hectares have already burned, an unprecedented level and around thirty fires are simultaneously active across the territory. Three men were arrested in Gironde on Saturday on suspicion of endangering lives. The Gironde fire has so far burned 42,000 hectares, an area four times the size of Paris and one of the biggest devastations of land since the second world war. At least 240 homes had been destroyed and many more damaged, a gendarme told BFMTV. Jerome Steffe, the mayor of Cestas commune, 10 miles from Bordeaux city centre, told French media: We are working together to put in place a firewall to block the advance of the flames. An exhibition centre in Bordeaux has been turned into an emergency shelter, providing camp beds and food for thousands of people, including hundreds of older people evacuated from care homes. Cazenave said he had asked the central government for an economic crisis plan for the area because many businesses and workers had been evacuated from areas west of Bordeaux and the tourism industry had been heavily affected.