Forest between the towns of Marcheprime and Cestas just a few miles southwest of Bordeaux, burns on Sunday night. Photo by Amael Dubiez/Gironde Department Fire and Rescue Service/EPA
July 27 (UPI) -- Massive wildfires in France and Spain killed one person and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands with a blaze in France's southwestern Gironde region advancing to within 10 miles of Bordeaux, a city of about 850,000 people.
French President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting Monday morning to address the country's response to the wildfire west of Bordeaux that has seen 220,000 residents and tourists and 13,000 businesses evacuated and burned through more than 100,000 acres.
The fire in the Gironde region caused a huge fire-thunderstorm fed by its own winds and lightning -- a so-called pyrocumulonimbus -- according to authorities, amid concerns the situation could be about to get worse due to a heat wave, the fourth of the summer, forecast to hit France on Tuesday.
"We don't know how the blaze will spread, the fire front is constantly shifting. We cannot fight it directly," said National Firefighters Federation of France spokesman Eric Brocardi.
