French authorities said on the 28th that the country's largest wildfire in
nearly 80 years has been fully extinguished after burning for about two months.
The blaze began in July in Gironde province, burning roughly 42,000 hectares
(around 37,000 ha completely destroyed), forced about 224,000 people to evacuate
and threatened Cap Ferret and Bordeaux suburbs. More than 3,300 firefighters
were deployed in what officials described as the largest firefighting operation
in modern French civil-protection history; the fire was brought under control on
Aug. 1 but smoldered underground for weeks before being fully put out. There
were no reported deaths; the last comparable fire in the same region was in
1949, at about 50,000 ha.
