A fast-moving wildfire on the outskirts of France’s second-largest city, Marseille, has destroyed homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate, as a heatwave and dangerous fire conditions grip the Mediterranean.
Interior minister Bruno Retailleau said the fire around Marseille could be contained overnight if the gale-force winds fanning the flames weaken, as expected. So far, 400 people had been evacuated, around a dozen houses destroyed and 63 others damaged, he said. He added about 100 people had also suffered light injuries, including from emergency services.
“At the moment that I speak to you there are no deaths, which is remarkable given the extent of the fires,” he said on Tuesday evening as he visited firefighters in the region. “But there are all the reasons to think we are headed towards a summer of high risk.”
Local media reported that the cause appeared to have been a vehicle that caught fire on the A552 motorway. The climate crisis is creating conditions that allow such fires to burn faster, more intensely and over larger areas.
The fire has brought many of the city’s services to a halt. Marseille airport cancelled all flights, train services to and from the north and north-west of the city were suspended, two motorways, main roads and several road tunnels in the city were closed, and many bus services cancelled, authorities said.
Departures to Brussels, Munich and Naples were cancelled, with incoming flights diverted to nearby airports, including Nice and Nimes. Marseille is France’s second largest regional airport, handling nearly 11 million passengers last year.
Earlier, the regional prefect, Georges-François Leclerc told reporters that the blaze was not yet contained but the situation appeared to be “under control”.
“The instructions are simple: have confidence in firefighters, let emergency services do their job, and stay indoors,” he said. “Firefighters are defending the city.”
Fanned by winds reaching 100km/h, the fire filled downtown Marseille with acrid smoke and flying cinders. Videos from the central Old Port area showed large plumes of smoke billowing over the city.
It urged residents closest to the blaze, especially in the northern 15th and 16th arrondissements, to “stay inside so as to avoid any exposure to smoke” from the fire. Four sports halls in the city were opened to accommodate any more evacuees.
“You can feel it, you can see it and you can smell it,” Vanessa, a 16th arrondissement resident, told BFMTV. “It’s horrific. We’re all frightened. It’s a catastrophe, you can’t even put your nose outside the front door – in Marseille!”
City hall said 720 firefighters, including dozens from neighbouring departments, were battling the blaze with 220 emergency vehicles, helped by helicopters and water-bombing planes. About 350 hectares of land had been consumed by late afternoon.
Local authorities said 20 houses had been destroyed, including several within the city limits. Nine firefighters were being treated for smoke inhalation and four residents had been hospitalised in “relatively urgent” circumstances.
The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, congratulated the city’s firefighters “who have so far saved several hundred houses”. A major hospital to the north of the city had switched to emergency generators “as a precaution” but was safe, he added.
“As we speak, it’s a battle,” Payan said, likening tackling the wildfire to “guerrilla warfare”.
He added: “We’re waiting to see what happens overnight, because that’s critical too. Everything is strategic: wind speed, humidity, nightfall … It’s extremely complex.”
The prefecture of the Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur region issued multiple mobile phone alerts urging inhabitants to also close their doors and shutters, hang wet laundry around openings, and keep all roads clear for emergency services.
Three southern French departments, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Vaucluse, are on red fire alert. Many of the region’s forests have been closed and barbecues and cigarettes banned near wooded areas.
The Mediterranean is one of the most vulnerable regions to worsening extreme heat fuelled by climate change, and much of the region is experiencing heatwaves and wildfires.
In north-eastern Spain, firefighters continued to battle a wildfire in the Catalan province of Tarragona that has burned through more than 3,100 hectares of forest, farm and urban land, and confined 18,000 people indoors.
Syria on Tuesday appealed for help from the EU in battling wildfires that have been blazing for six days, sweeping through a vast expanse of forest. Neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey have already dispatched firefighting teams to assist.
With Agence France-Presse
