Fire bomber planes battle wildfires of 'exceptional scale' near Paris

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - PARIS — French officialson Sunday rushed two firefighting planes to tackle a “very virulent” fire of “exceptional scale” that erupted in the sprawling Fontainebleau forest about 60 south-east of Paris.

The Fontainebleau forest blaze partially closed the country's main north-south highway, disrupting traffic during the first major weekend getaway of the summer. High-speed rail was also disrupted.

The fire began late afternoon in the one-time royal hunting preserve that is dotted with quiet villages. It raced across 800 hectares (2,000 acres) and was still spreading early on Monday, officials said.

Firefighting aircraft had to suspend operations at nightfall on Sunday. About 15 homes were evacuated in the village of Vaudoue and firefighters were defending several other towns in the area, said the local Seine-et-Marne fire service.

Without the firefighting planes, other villages would already have been evacuated, said Olivier Compta, who was overseeing the firefighting operation.

About 400 firefighters worked to contain the fire, which erupted two days before the 14 July Bastille day national holiday.

Eric Brocardi, of France’s national federation of firefighters, said it was the first time firebomber planes had been sent up from the normally drier and hotter south of the country to extinguish fires in the Paris region.

Two firefighting helicopters and an observation aircraft were also helping to fight the blaze, he added. “The aim is to save lives and property,” he said as the fire advanced.

Earlier, firefighters dealt with a fire that had blocked a highway running east from Paris and disrupted a high-speed train line to the south of France.

Travellers were facing delays of up to six hours for trains arriving at or leaving from Paris's Gare de Lyon, French rail company SNCF said on Sunday evening.

The Paris region – and large parts of the rest of France – have been sharing in a succession of heatwaves since May that have seen temperature records broken in several countries across Europe and have caused thousands of excess deaths, according to estimates in Belgium, Britain, France and Spain. Several other European countries have faced record-breaking average temperatures.

The record-breaking temperatures have led to major wildfires, most notably in Spain where at least 13 people were killed by Thursday's wildfire in Almeria, one of the country's deadliest ever.

And in the UK, a large wildfire in north Wales was declared a major incident by emergency services on Sunday, as firefighters tackled fires across England and Wales.

The June heatwaves would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said.

The interior minister Laurent Nunez, whose office announced he would visit Fontainebleau on Monday, said that forest fires had already consumed 17,000 hectares this year. Once the figures had all been tallied, that would come to 25,000 hectares – “twice as much as the same period” in 2025, he added.

The latest French heatwave has forced the temporary shutdown of three nuclear power stations to avoid the discharge of warm cooling water into overheated waterways.

Organizers of the Tour de France cycling race also shortened Sunday's stage by 30km (19 miles) as temperatures neared 40C.