Irish people in France have been fleeing the advance of wildfires as the largest blaze in the country’s modern history forced the evacuation of over 250,000 people.A fire in the Gironde region outside the city of Bordeaux flared up again on Tuesday after it was stabilised by an immense firefighting operation involving 2,750 firefighters, 1,500 soldiers and cadres of volunteer farmers and construction workers working to dampen vegetation and create new firebreaks.Alistair Burke, a long-time resident of the Cap Ferret peninsula originally from Derry, was woken up at 3am on Friday by an emergency alarm on his phone telling him to immediately evacuate.“If there’s damage to the house, there’s damage to the house. What can I say? We’re literally 30 yards away from the forest where we live,” Burke said.Alistair Burke: 'Nobody can return to their homes until the fire is stopped.' “It’s not a normal forest fire. These are what they call pyrocumulonimbus, which means that the fire self-perpetuates. It’s like a vortex,” he said.He is now staying with relatives on the opposite side of the bay, watching the thick smoke rising and water-bombing aircraft dousing the flames.“Today is slightly better, we can see the sun now for the first time, because the winds are blowing slightly to the west,” he said.“The authorities have said the fire is not contained and nobody can return to their homes until the fire is stopped.”The fires have sent plumes of toxic smoke over built-up areas, leading the French government to distribute free FFP2 face masks while tens of thousands of people have been told to stay indoors.[ France evacuates tourist sites as battles against wildfires in Europe continueOpens in new window ]Frank Jackson, a long-time Bordeaux resident originally from Belfast who runs The Connemara pub, said the city centre does not feel under threat but there are concerns in the outer suburbs close to the tree line.“The real danger at the moment for the people is not the fire, but it’s the particles, the very dangerous particles in the air,” Jackson said.“Some of our staff actually got up and left. There was one guy from Cork, he said to me: I have to jump ship here because my parents are so worried about all the fires.”He was among the members of the close-knit Irish community of Bordeaux preparing to receive evacuees from areas closer to the fires.“A lot of people are volunteering to take in families. We prepared our house for two or three families to come to us just in case,” he said. “The solidarity with people has been unbelievable.”Fresh evacuations were ordered on Tuesday as authorities told 4,000 people to leave “vulnerable” campsites and tourist accommodation in the popular beachside town of Lacanau to the fire’s northwest.Business owners have been warning of a far-reaching economic impact.“It’s going to be a very big financial, economic disaster in the region because there’s a whole year season of tourism that is lost,” Jackson said.The fire has been consuming a pine forest that was planted as a timber and resin crop on drained marshland, and discussion has turned to whether the landscape needs to change to adapt to a new climate.The Gironde region fire is one of multiple severe blazes that are ongoing in France and Spain, including in Corsica, the Alpes, Valencia and in the mountains outside Madrid. Firefighting efforts have racing to control the fires before a new heatwave takes hold that is expected to bring temperatures of as high as 42 degrees in parts of France and Spain.“The weather conditions are unfavourable,” the sub-prefect of Lesparre-Médoc, Fabien Tuleu, said. “We are going to reach temperatures of around 40 degrees over a good part of the area.”