French language teacher Tammy Ní Laoire was due to return home to Conamara from Bordeaux next Saturday but she spent the morning trying to book an earlier return flight.
The Mayor of Bordeaux has said that wildfires were about 15km from the main entry points to the city.
Ms Ní Laoire managed to get a flight to Dublin on Wednesday, but said that flights out of Bordeaux were quickly selling out or going up in price.
“I spoke to a few locals, they’re coming from different points of view, some of them are a little bit nervous” but she said she also spoke to a waiter who simply said “life goes on, c’est la vie”.
For Ms Ní Laoire, she said her primary concern at the moment was “not so much the fire coming into the city as the smoke inhalation”.
“It is really really bad, I mean there is ash everywhere, it is difficult to breath, there are queues for masks,” she said.
Conor Irwin is originally from Dublin but he has lived on the outskirts of Bordeaux for a number of years.
Conor Irwin said planned to ‘stay indoors’ with his window shutters closed to protect against the smoke
“Bordeaux is divided kind of left bank, right bank, like Dublin is north-south,” Mr Irwin explained.
“I’m on the left bank … the right bank is kind of closer to the coast where the fires have started,” he said.
Nevertheless, he can smell “the smoke and the burning wood” and he said it was like a “heavy fog over the city”.
“It kind of gets to the back of your throat and in your eyes,” he said.
He also described seeing the glow of the fire “almost like a sun setting, but it was actually the fires in the distance on the horizon.”
Mr Irwin also described how earlier today he and his son saw “trucks carrying huge vats of water going over the bridge towards the coast” as part of the firefighting operation.
Watch: Thousands flock to evacuation centre in Bordeaux
He said that things had seemed to improve in the last day.
“The winds have moved today and they’ve kind of gone out eastwards towards the coast,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Irwin said people were just “getting on with it” .
“I know friends of mine in the centre of Bordeaux, they don’t need to evacuate, but they’ve packed bags and loaded cars already, they’re ready to go in case it comes any closer,” Mr Irwin said.
“Nobody’s panicking, it’s just people are being quite careful, and nobody’s really going anywhere,” Mr Irwin said.
He said he planned to “stay indoors” with his window shutters closed to protect against the smoke.
“I work in the city, but I’m going to be working from home over the next week,” Mr Irwin added.
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