{"id":52194,"date":"2026-08-01T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T06:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=52194"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T06:29:18","slug":"as-heat-and-dry-conditions-fan-wildfires-in-france-volunteers-fan-out-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/as-heat-and-dry-conditions-fan-wildfires-in-france-volunteers-fan-out-to-help\/","title":{"rendered":"As heat and dry conditions fan wildfires in France, volunteers fan out to help"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

London\u00a0 : With his watering can and bucket, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Pauner meanders from one small fire to the next along a forest floor, dousing small flare-ups of wildfires that have swept through woodlands four times the size of Paris in southwestern France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first fire I’m experiencing real-time, and I can tell you it\u2019s vicious,\u201d said Pauner, 64. \u201cIt\u2019s underground, it comes out at any moment, and no matter how much we try to extinguish it, re-extinguish it, re-extinguish it, it keeps restarting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a steamroller that\u2019s constantly, constantly rolling,\u201d said Pauner, wearing shorts, boots and sunglasses on a string around his neck on a road through cultivated pine trees, as the ground smoldered.<\/p>\n

Pauner is among the untold numbers of volunteers who have mobilized to support firefighters battling the biggest wildfires in years in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m protecting my forest, and my home,\u201d he said, pouring his watering can into a smoking ditch as if watering a garden, then huffing in the heat.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands forced from their homes
\nThe wildfires that tore through cultivated forests on an Atlantic coast also known for towering sand dunes and tourist resorts devastated 42,000 hectares (about 162 square miles) west of Bordeaux, driving nearly a quarter-million people out of their homes and vacation sites.<\/p>\n

Many other places in France have been hit by fires this summer, including in the Mediterranean Var region where a blaze in the Gros Bessillon mountain ridge flared up again on Friday, driven by violent winds, local authorities said. Several towns in the area were evacuated.<\/p>\n

Europe is facing an extremely hot summer, fueling wildfires from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. The United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey battled blazes this week.<\/p>\n

As cooler, more humid air moved into southwest France this week, authorities allowed two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to return home, including some more on Friday.<\/p>\n

But the ground still simmers in many places.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stabilized, but not totally stopped,\u201d French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told RTL radio. \u201cHot spots remain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volunteers like Pauner \u2014 what he calls \u201clittle eyes\u201d on watch to report flare-ups to firefighters \u2014 do what they can with limited resources. Others have mobilized their trucks and giant jerrycans to supply water to fire crews.<\/p>\n

Drought has left forests dangerously dry
\nProlonged drought and climate change have created fire-prone conditions. Pauner said the region endured more than two months without significant rainfall, leaving vegetation exceptionally dry.<\/p>\n

In the smoking forests, fire crews used rakes to dig down into the smoldering forest floor so buried embers can be doused with water, a long and painstaking job. Ukraine became the latest country to send help, dispatching 70 people and 10 vehicles in the coming days, Nunez said.<\/p>\n

Investigators suspect that contractors clearing away vegetation inadvertently ignited the blaze last week. But other fires have been attributed to arsonists or criminal negligence.<\/p>\n

Nunez said police have made 308 arrests in connection with blazes this summer \u2014 more than 120 of them involving minors \u2014 and that 33 people have either been convicted or are being held pending court rulings.<\/p>\n

Many parts of Greece were listed at high or extreme risk of wildfires, with strong winds. Three Greek firefighters died fighting fires this week on the southern island of Crete.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were tackling 73 wildfires around the country, 51 of which broke out on Friday, Fire department spokesman Col. Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said.<\/p>\n

The fire department and coast guard used boats to evacuate more than 250 people from one of the largest fires, in Boeotia, and evacuation orders were issued for several other fires, including one on the western fringes of the Greek capital.<\/p>\n

Gale-force winds were hampering aircraft from dumping water on the wildfires, he said.<\/p>\n

In England, where half the country is gripped by drought, firefighters battled a wildfire on an east coast heath in Suffolk, near a nuclear power station that fire services said wasn’t threatened. More than 100 firefighters were deployed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it is under control,\u201d said Henry Griffin, a fire officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London\u00a0 : With his watering can and bucket, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Pauner meanders from one small fire to the next along a forest floor, dousing small flare-ups of wildfires that have swept through woodlands four times the size of Paris in southwestern France. \u201cThis is the first fire I’m experiencing real-time, and I can tell you it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52196,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52194\/revisions\/52196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}