LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — France gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to return home, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning the corner in a grueling battle against flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris. But blazes flared elsewhere across Europe and actor George Clooney said he'd evacuated his French home because of a nearby wildfire.
Europe is sweltering under an exceptionally hot and arid summer, creating tinderbox conditions for unprecedented fires that have flared from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate homes and vacation spots.
Firefighters battled flames in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey on Thursday and were tamping down smoldering forests in southwest France where 224,000 people had been forced to flee. Romania shut down both reactors at its Cernavoda nuclear power plant due to low water levels in the Danube River used to cool them.
Hollywood star George Clooney wrote to his local mayor that his family evacuated the southeastern French town where they've settled and that "we have no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment." Clooney's publicist Guido Gotz shared the message to Brignoles Mayor Didier Brémond with The Associated Press.
Clooney wrote that he and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, were committed to the town and that, whatever happens, "we'll be part of making it whole."
The fire near Brignoles, in the Var region, flared Wednesday, forcing 700 people to evacuate, the mayor's office said. It said they were allowed back Thursday once the fire was tamed.
Returnees in France clear away ash
In the Bordeaux region of southwest France, wildfire evacuees streamed back to nine localities that authorities now deem safe after round-the-clock combat with the huge fire that ignited last week. Returnees included 50-year-old Sanachit Pho Ne Keo and his wife, relieved to discover that apart from black ash on an outside terrace, their home in Martignas-sur-Jalle wasn't damaged.
“Everything seems OK and it’s a good feeling!” he said.
“The fire was pretty close, the last smoking embers are still close,” he added. “But we could’ve expected worse.”
Regional health authorities recommended that returnees wear gloves and face masks as they clean up and wash children’s toys and pets’ feeding bowls and paws. France’s public health agency reported that call-out doctors and hospital emergency wards in Bordeaux had seen a spike in cases involving asthma sufferers last weekend when the raging wildfire was still spewing choking smoke clouds.
“It's the first somewhat optimistic day,” said Sophie Brocas, prefect of Bordeaux's Gironde region who gave the go-ahead for nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to go home, including 60,000 allowed back to three Bordeaux suburbs on Tuesday.
Still, returnees were told to keep phones on and pack bags in case they have to be evacuated again.
The A63 highway south of Bordeaux also was reopened, clearing a major artery for road traffic with Spain and vacationers as France enters its peak August holiday period.
“Our feeling is that we’re getting back to the path of a normal life,” Brocas said Thursday evening.
Fire still smoking but not spreading
Gironde authorities said the blaze is no longer growing beyond the 420 square kilometers (about 162 square miles) already affected — an area four times that of Paris.
Capitalizing on the shift of momentum, police water cannons usually used for riot control are being added to the effort to extinguish embers and flare-ups, involving 3,300 firefighters and two dozen planes and helicopters dumping water and retardants, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.
More aid came from other countries, with Luxembourg, Slovakia, Latvia, Germany and Serbia sending fire crews, adding to aircraft and other assistance provided by other countries, and Ukraine also offering help, Nuñez said.
Crews using heavy diggers continued ripping up trees and bushes to carve barriers of land between woodlands that burned and those that didn't, boxing in the blaze with firebreaks — now exceeding a total of 130 kilometers (80 miles) through the forests.
Emergency crews also set fires deliberately to burn away scrub that could fuel the wildfire.
“If we light a fire here, we know that our fire will move toward the incoming fire. So we’re not taking much of a risk,” said Lt. Col. Jérôme Jallet, overseeing a burn.
A heat wave — France's fourth of the year — gave way Thursday to cooler weather, higher humidity and even a little rain, helping the effort.
Tinderbox conditions across southern Europe
Successive heatwaves have created tinder-dry conditions across swaths of southern Europe and whack-a-mole emergencies for fire crews, with blazes flaring as others are extinguished.
Greece was tackling large fires on the islands of Crete, Paros and Andros, a day after three firefighters died.
In Spain, firefighters fought blazes in northwestern Zamora and eastern Castellón, after making progress against infernos in the Madrid region and Ávila that prompted the government to declare a national fire emergency for the first time.
At the peak of evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.
In France, two firefighters suffered light injuries battling a woodlands blaze in the eastern Burgundy region and four were injured in the southern Var region on a fire brought under control with a dozen planes and helicopters dropping water and retardant, authorities said.
In Germany, firefighters using drones and helicopters battled an Alpine forest fire near the Austrian border, the dpa news agency reported.
On a heath of birch trees, heather and wildlife in Suffolk, east England, wind-whipped flames burned across an area the size of 140 soccer pitches and forced hundreds of people to evacuate homes, vacation cottages and a mobile home park, fire services said. New U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham called it “a very serious incident.” The southern half of the U.K. is suffering drought.
In Turkey, firefighters and aircraft battled forest fires in four western provinces, including tourist areas Mugla and Antalya.
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Turnbull reported from Martignas-sur-Jalle, France, and Leicester reported from Paris. Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Jill Lawless and Samuel Petrequin in London, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Elena Becatoros in Athens, Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, Andrew Wilks in Ankara, Turkey, and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England contributed to this report.
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