By Elizabeth Howcroft
BORDEAUX, France, July 25 (Reuters) – Thousands of people were evacuated from suburbs near Bordeaux on Saturday as wildfires in southwestern France crept closer to the city.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said this year’s wildfires in France, which have resulted from an intense Europe-wide heatwave, had so far resulted in a total of 98,000 hectares of ground burnt, which Nunez said was a record amount.
The Bordeaux region is famed for its vineyards and the city is one of the main transport hubs for tourists visiting nearby holiday resorts on the Atlantic coast.
Nunez said the fire was currently about 30 kilometres (18.64 miles) away from the main city of Bordeaux.
“We expect to be in for a long and difficult battle,” Nunez added at a news conference.
Motorists were advised to avoid the region, while rail passengers who had booked tickets going into or through Bordeaux were also told to change their travel plans.
Bordeaux authorities evacuated people from the areas of Le Haillan, Eysines and Merignac, and many ended up in temporary accomodation in Bordeaux’s main exhibition centre.
So far, a total of 167,000 people have been evacuated from the Gironde region close to Bordeaux.
“The fires that are hitting our country have reached a level that has never been seen before,” wrote French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu earlier on Saturday. The army has also been drafted in to help.
North of Bordeaux, smoke emanating from the wildfires was seen and felt in the Haute-Vienne region, where local authorities advised people to keep doors and windows closed.
So far this month, temperatures have averaged 32.2 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit) across the broader Aquitaine region, which is 7.3C (13.1F) above the normal high for July between 1961 and 1990, according to data on Reuters Climate Monitor.
Neighbouring Spain has declared its first national emergency over a wildfire, because of three blazes, two of which merged on Friday.
(Reporting by Camille Raynaud, Stephane Mahe, Elizabeth Howcroft and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Susan Fenton, Kevin Liffey and Louise Heavens)
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