French President Emmanuel Macron is calling an emergency cabinet meeting today to address the massive wildfires that have forced more than 250,000 people to flee their homes, the Associated Press reported, BTA reported.
The emergency cabinet meeting scheduled for this morning will be chaired by Macron. In a post in Aix yesterday, he pledged long-term support for communities affected by the fires. "We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be there for as long as necessary," Macron wrote.
Authorities in the southwestern French department of Gironde, where the flames have engulfed an area four times the size of Paris, said the situation overnight was "generally stable". It was a change from the previous days, when the huge fire that had been burning for the past week was moving closer to the city of Bordeaux.
Authorities did not announce any new evacuations, but they took additional steps to discourage tourists from arriving at the height of the tourist season, banning children's camps and camps for the disabled.
The massive operation to extinguish the fire has become a race against time, with fire crews trying to beat a predicted rise in temperatures tomorrow that could make it harder to fight the flames.
The growing fires in southwestern France led to the evacuation of 55,000 people overnight in the Gironde department, increasing the number of people forced to leave their homes by the approaching fire to about 220,000 in that region alone, the Associated Press reported. press.
Constantly changing winds are complicating the work of emergency services in the Bordeaux region. Evacuation orders were issued overnight for five municipalities southwest of the city in France's famous wine region.
"The situation remains extremely difficult", said French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, describing "another difficult night" for the country's firefighting teams, with the area burned now four times the size of the capital Paris.
"The fire has once again become extremely unpredictable, advancing towards Bordeaux," Nunez wrote on the social media platform Ex. Mayor Thomas Cazenave said "the fire is at the gates of Bordeaux".