French authorities say 220,000 now evacuated from biggest forest fire

An aerial view of wildfire in Le Porge, in the Gironde Department, south-western France. [Florian Plaucheur,AFP]

French authorities said Sunday that more than 220,000 people have now been evacuated from the main forest fire raging in the southwest of the country, which has also forced the closure of highways and rail lines.

More than 50,000 additional people have been ordered to leave villages around Bordeaux, which is now under threat from the flames, bringing the total evacuated from this single fire above 220,000. Tens of thousands more have been evacuated from other wildfires in France and central Spain.

Because of the spread of the flames in high winds, 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the main A63 highway from Bordeaux to the Spanish border has been closed because of the fires, regional authorities said. The SNCF rail company said it had also halted train traffic south of Bordeaux.

The fire "will take a long time to bring under control" and until it is contained "there will be no return" for evacuated residents and tourists, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in an interview published Sunday by La Tribune.

The regional prefecture said that the fire has now burned some 42,000 hectares (103,000 acres) of land, making it one of the biggest in France since World War II. A 1949 fire devastated some 50,000 hectares.

The French army has sent 1,500 soldiers to help hundreds of exhausted firefighters who have been battling the flames for nearly a week.

Heat from the flames was causing whirlwinds that had made the wildfire "erratic and unmanageable", said firefighter captain Nicolas Braz, one of the leaders of the operation.