JAKARTA - Forest fires spread across southwest France on Saturday. Nearly 10,000 hectares burned in the Gironde region, an increase from 7,300 hectares on Friday.
More than 12,200 people had been evacuated from the area as of Saturday morning and more than 1,000 firefighters were trying to control the blaze, regional authorities Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde said in a statement.
"Given the weather conditions and the critical risk of fire, the authorities have temporarily blocked access to the forest area for professional and recreational activities," the statement said as quoted by Antara, Saturday, July 16.
Wildfires have been raging in France over the past few weeks, as well as in other European countries such as Portugal and Spain, as temperatures have risen. The fires around the town of Teste-de-Buch in Gironde have stabilized, having engulfed more than 3,000 hectares since the start of the crisis.
In the nearby town of Landiras, where 6,500 hectares have burned and 2,200 people evacuated, the fires continued to spread overnight, pushed to the southwest by strong winds.
"We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it's not stabilized," Vincent Ferrier, Langon's deputy government official at the Gironde, said at a news conference on Saturday.
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