Wildfires in France trigger mass evacuations

• Fire destroyed one mobile home and partially damaged five others.
• The fire started near the A9 highway from Montpellier to the Spanish border.
• Firefighters have emptied private homeowners' swimming pools to combat the blaze.

Two wildfires in southern France forced officials to evacuate several thousand people before they brought the blazes under control, officials said on Monday. Rescue services reported that about 3,000 holidaymakers fled from a camping site to a municipal building in Canet-en-Roussillon, near Perpignan, as strong winds fueled the fire.

The fire, which destroyed one mobile home and partially damaged five others, has been brought under control, officials said. Further up the Mediterranean coast, firefighters also contained a blaze that had forced dozens of residents to evacuate their homes in the coastal town of Frontignan, near Montpellier.

“The fire has been under control for two and a half hours now,” a spokesman for the regional firefighters, Jerome Bonnafoux, told AFP shortly after sunrise.

“We’re still working on it because there are several hot spots where the risk of it flaring are high,” he added.

Of the 600 firefighters who rushed to extinguish the blaze on Sunday, half are expected to continue working at the site throughout the day, officials said. The fire, which has burned at least 300 hectares (740 acres) of land, started near the A9 highway from Montpellier to the Spanish border. Firefighters have emptied the swimming pools of private homeowners to help combat the blaze, according to the mayor’s cabinet director.

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