French firefighters are battling to contain a large wildfire in the southern region of Var that has forced the evacuation of thousands of people, including tourists in campsites.
The Élysée Palace said in a statement thatPresident Emmanuel Macron would visit the area Tuesday afternoon. Around 750 firefighters and water-droppping aircraft were battling the blaze in difficult conditions, with high temperatures and strong winds.
A fire service spokeswoman, Delphine Vienco, said, Thousands of people have been evacuated as a precautionary measure, but there are no victims adding that the blaze was still very fierce.
Southern France is the latest area around the Mediterranean basin to be hit by wildfires this summer, a seasonal phenomenon, which climate scientists warn will become increasingly common because of man-made global warming.
Large fires have already ravaged parts of Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Algeria and Morocco.
The blaze broke out Monday at a motorway stop about 100 kilometres northeast of the port city of Toulon. By Tuesday morning, it had already covered more than 3,500 hectares of forest and scrubland, according to the fire department.
The Var prefecture confirmed that several campsites were evacuated and asked people to avoid congesting the roads around the Gulf of Saint-Tropez so that the emergency services can access the area.
Hot and arid southeast France, which regularly experiences summer wildfires, had been relatively spared so far this year.
According to the Prometheus database on forest fires in the Mediterranean region, the total area burned in France in the four regions hit was 2,336 hectares for 2021, against 7,698 for the whole of 2020.
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