French authorities ordered the complete evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula on Friday, launching boats to help rescue people from the popular tourist destination that’s now threatened by wildfires.
Evacuation boats operated from three piers on the peninsula, which is situated about 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of Bordeaux in southwestern France, the province’s prefect, Sophie Brocas, said Friday morning.
Such an operation demonstrates the severity of the wildfires currently ripping across parts of southern France and elsewhere in Europe, fueled by record-breaking, climate change-driven heat waves that have turned the landscape into a tinderbox.
Similar fierce wildfires in Spain have forced the government to declare a national state of emergency.
In France’s Cap Ferret alone, 40,000 people have been evacuated, according to France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, though only a few hundred of those were evacuated by sea.
