Paris: About 98,000 hectares of land have been burned by wildfires across France so far in 2026, setting a historical record for the country, French authorities said Saturday.
Speaking at a press briefing, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that several blazes remain uncontained across the national territory, notably in the departments of Gironde, Landes, and Var, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The ongoing emergency has led to large-scale evacuations in southwestern France. According to Nunez, 57,000 people were evacuated overnight due to the spreading fires in Gironde, bringing the total number of evacuated residents in the region to 167,000.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France had requested the activation of the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism as wildfires continued to spread across the country.
In a post on social media platform X, Macron said the wildfire situation remained under very high tension across France, particularly in the southwestern Gironde department.
He said France would soon receive aerial firefighting assistance, including two Canadair aircraft from Croatia, two Air Tractor aircraft from Portugal, and two heavy Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
According to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), cited by French daily Le Parisien, more than 42,000 hectares have burned across France since the beginning of the year, already above the total area burned in the whole of 2025. Nearly 15,000 hectares burned during the first two weeks of July alone, with affected areas including the Fontainebleau Forest southeast of Paris.
Two wildfires broke out in the Fontainebleau Forest, about 60 km southeast of Paris, on July 12 and July 13. The French National Forestry Office said the fires scorched about 2,000 hectares, or around 10 per cent of the forest’s total area.
France was battling 32 active wildfires, while more than 50,000 hectares had burned nationwide since the beginning of the year, French daily Le Figaro reported on Friday, citing Nunez.
(IANS)
