Hundreds of firemen have been deployed in the Gironde region south of the city of Bordeaux to fight a blaze which has already destroyed 1,300 hectares of forest and forced the evacuation of several hundred people.
The disaster was still unfolding on Tuesday morning in the town of Saumos, a village located between the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean, near the seaside resort of Lacanau, in the Médoc area.