Firefighters battle blazes scorching southern France after record heatwave

Firefighters were battling several wildfires fanned by strong winds in southern France on Thursday, as the country grappled with parched conditions following Europe's recent heatwave.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said three blazes, two of which broke out on the western edge of the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, had scorched a combined area of 1,210 hectares (2,990 acres).

As Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu arrived on Thursday afternoon in Marseille to hold a new crisis meeting on the heatwave and the wildfires, a new blaze had just started near the city of Roquemaure in the Gard area, firefighters told Lecornu.

The World Meteorological Organization last week warned that the record temperatures that baked Western Europe for over a week in late June would worsen the risk of wildfires, given the outlook for sustained high temperatures, very low humidity and dry vegetation.

The biggest wildfire was burning in the Aude administrative department area near the border with Spain, with some 900 hectares burnt. Local authorities said high winds were making it more difficult for the 800 firefighters to battle the fire. 

Meanwhile, firefighters were tamping down a small blaze in Rognac near Marseille's airport and had brought another fire covering 260 hectares in Lancon-Provence under control. There were no casualties, local officials said. 

An acrid smell of smoke hung over the area and pilots on at least one flight landing at the city reassured passengers the smell was not coming from their aircraft, a Reuters witness said.

Further east, in Fréjus, a resort town in the Var department some 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Cannes, more than 2,000 people were evacuated from six campsites on Wednesday because of a nearby forest fire. 

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France's weather office has warned that another spell of extreme heat could hit next week. Health authorities estimate the previous heatwave may have caused at least 1,000 excess deaths in the country during record-breaking temperatures.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)