Firefighters are battling for a third day to contain France’s biggest wildfire in nearly eight decades, which has burnt more than 16,000 hectares, killed one person, and destroyed dozens of houses.
One person has died, three are missing and two people including a firefighter are in critical condition, local authorities said.
Images showed plumes of smoke rising over the forest area in the region of Aude in southern France.
“As of now, the fire has not been brought under control,” Christophe Magny, one of the officials leading the firefighting operation, told BFM TV. He added that he hoped the blaze could be contained later in the day.
The blaze, around 100 km from the border with Spain, not far from the Mediterranean Sea, began on Tuesday and has spread rapidly.
It has already swept through an area one-and-a-half times bigger than Paris. Officials have said it is France’s biggest wildfire since 1949.
The fire is now advancing more slowly, Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told France Info radio.
Villagers sought to help douse the flames or save their homes and small businesses, and described their alarm at the fire’s speed.
Ash filled the air and coated windows and cars, and several roads were closed around the region.
“The sky was blue, and then less than an hour later the sky was orange,” said Andy Pickup of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, at the heart of the fire zone.
“That’s when we went out and tried to help.”
“We heard pops and cracks — it was the trees, it was the village,” he told The Associated Press.
“We could see the fires taking hold on all the hills around Saint-Laurent.”
At dusk, he said, they saw fires in every direction, some as near as 100 meters (yards) away.
