‘Unprecedented’: More than 100,000 evacuated in France’s fire-hit south-west

PARIS - Around 110,000 people have been evacuated from areas threatened by wildfires in France’s south-west that have scorched 14,000 hectares, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on July 24.

Fifty-three homes have also been destroyed, Nunez told television network TF1, giving tolls counted since July 22, when the fires in the Gironde and Landes regions became broad emergencies.

He called the situation “completely unprecedented”, adding that the country had never before seen this type of fire on this scale.

Nunez also pledged that French authorities would “do everything to protect” the city of Bordeaux, near to which two major fires were raging. AFP