A wildfire raced through part of France’s Mediterranean coast this week, forcing the evacuation of about 3,000 people as flames spread from the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer down to the marina at Canet-en-Roussillon in the Pyrénées-Orientales. Roughly half of those evacuated were holidaymakers pulled from three campsites, many of them fleeing to nearby beaches with little more than the clothes they were wearing.
The fire began at a campsite and moved fast, fed by vegetation left tinder-dry by a recent heatwave and pushed by wind gusts reaching 80 kilometers per hour. It destroyed dozens of mobile homes before reaching the marina, where thick, acrid smoke drifted over moored boats. Around 200 firefighters and four water-bombing aircraft were deployed; two firefighters suffered minor injuries.
The blaze forced the temporary closure of nearby Perpignan airport and blocked local roads, and the Pyrénées-Orientales prefecture opened reception centers in several towns along the coast, including Canet-en-Roussillon, Torreilles and Le Barcarès. Officials said the rapid spread reflected the same conditions — drought-stressed brush and strong wind after an intense early-summer heat — driving fire risk across the region.
The evacuation is the latest chapter in a punishing European summer that The Fold has tracked since red-alert heat gripped France and the United Kingdom in late June. France has recorded thousands of fires since the season began, and the Mediterranean south, where heat and wind converge on parched terrain, remains the country’s most exposed stretch as the holiday season peaks.