July 30, 2026 / 8:00 AM EDT
/ CBS/AP
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Ege-Cap Ferret, France — French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to go back to their homes in southwest France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris. The authorized returns announced Thursday covered nine localities that had been evacuated. In all, more than 220,000 people were forced to flee their homes since last week. Higher humidity, cooler temperatures and some drizzle raised hopes that Thursday could be a decisive step on the way to vanquishing the fire. The regional prefecture said returning evacuees must keep their phones on for evacuation alerts and should be packed and ready in case they need to leave again. Nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 people initially ordered to evacuate have now been allowed to go home. Some 60,000 people who had been evacuated from three suburbs of the city of Bordeaux, to the east, were given the go-ahead to return on Tuesday.
A firefighter uses a metal drip torch to ignite controlled fires in a forest in Le Porge, north of the Arcachon Basin, July 30, 2026, during wildfires in the Gironde region, southwestern France.
