{"id":715127,"date":"2026-07-28T09:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715127\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:47:10","slug":"ash-fell-from-the-sky-tourists-describe-fleeing-apocalyptic-wildfires-in-france-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715127\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ash fell from the sky\u2019: Tourists describe fleeing \u2018apocalyptic\u2019 wildfires in France | Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wildfires have forced about 375,000 people to leave their homes in France and Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In France<\/a>, nearly 260,000 have had to flee, while in neighbouring Spain 116,000 have been evacuated as the wildfires continue to wreak havoc across southern Europe.<\/p>\n

Authorities in France have been battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux, meanwhile, while Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, has warned that Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.<\/p>\n

It comes as another heatwave could hit France from Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 40C (104F) in some areas, weather forecasters said.<\/p>\n

Tourists caught up in the wildfires spoke to us about their experiences.<\/p>\n

Patrick, 77, was at a beach in Arcachon on the south-west coast of France on Thursday when he noticed the sky getting darker, and a \u201cgreat billowing pall of black smoke\u201d developing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the beginning of a slightly otherworldly experience,\u201d he said. He and his wife were forced to hitchhike 42 miles (69km) back to Bordeaux, where they were staying on holiday, after all trains were cancelled due to an electrical fault which had nothing to do with the fire. The couple entered a bike shop and asked for a piece of cardboard, on which Patrick wrote \u201cBordeaux SVP. Urgence!\u201d.<\/p>\n

They walked about a mile out of town to a roundabout and stuck their thumbs out, hitching a ride within five minutes. That took them halfway, until they were picked up by the owner of a chain of local coffee shops who was on route to Bordeaux to collect his wife, who was stranded because of the cancelled trains.<\/p>\n

It was only after getting back safely to Bordeaux, and watching the news unfold, that the severity of the fires hit them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realised that the two people who had given us lifts lived in areas where houses were burned and tens of thousands of people were being evacuated,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope they are both OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described the \u201cchilling feeling\u201d of seeing life on the beach seemingly going on as usual whilst smoke gathered in the skies above.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy main memory is how bizarre it was to watch people enjoying holidays on the beach while a major catastrophe was unfolding in full view, not far away. Is this how the world ends?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The sky just changed colour and the smoke was really intense.\u2019 Photograph: Alexandra\/Guardian Community<\/p>\n

Alexandra, 44, was holidaying with family members when she decided to cut her break short on Friday after seeing an \u201capocalyptic\u201d scene on the sand dunes near her resort at Lacanau Oc\u00e9an, in the Gironde region in south-west France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sky just changed colour and the smoke was really intense. There was ash falling from the clouds, and the beach was littered with black soot where the waves normally leave seaweed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was oddly haunting and beautiful, but also obviously quite terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexandra and her partner booked a flight back to the UK and headed to Bordeaux, where they booked into an airport hotel, thinking they had \u201cdone the right thing and gotten out of the way\u201d, but the fire had followed them east.<\/p>\n

An emergency alert on their mobile phones woke them up at 2.45am, informing them that the area around the airport was under an evacuation order. They joined other guests downstairs. \u201cThere were a lot of people confused, waiting in reception, not knowing what was happening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

They were taken by a taxi to the Bordeaux exhibition centre, and spent several hours waiting for sunrise with hundreds of other evacuees from the local neighbourhood, before travelling to the airport on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really heartening to see how well people were being looked after,\u201d she said. \u201cHopefully the light rain will help the firefighters get this blaze under control. They must be exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Smoke over Lacanau Oc\u00e9an looking south towards Le Porge. Photograph: Jason\/Guardian Community<\/p>\n

Jason, 53, from Cardiff, was also staying at Lacanau Oc\u00e9an at a campsite with his wife and three children, but they left after \u201cash began to fall from the sky\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were four days into a three-week holiday and had gone down to the beach on Friday and you could see the smoke gradually rising,\u201d said Jason, who is an academic. \u201cAs the morning went on, the smoke was growing. So we cycled about a mile back to the campsite, and by then you could see the smoke quite clearly from there. It kept growing, and in the end, it was covering the sun. Everything went dark. It was pretty heavy, the smoke was horrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018As the morning went on the smoke was growing.\u2019 Photograph: Jason\/Guardian Community<\/p>\n

He said as the day progressed things \u201ccalmed down\u201d, and the smoke moved on, but then came the ash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a bit uncomfortable,\u201d he added. \u201cAt that point, we decided to pack up everything on the Saturday and leave. We thought enough is enough. I think most of the campsite left at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sympathised with the campsite and the region as holidaymakers left.<\/p>\n

\u201cLacanau Oc\u00e9an was empty,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was hardly anybody there in the restaurants. And this time of year, as you can imagine, it would be really busy and full. It\u2019s a difficult one because we recognise the fact that the tourist industry is really important down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he and his wife and children, aged 14, 19 and 21, are \u201cin limbo\u201d as they have been told the campsite is still open, but authorities have said they \u201ccannot travel back there\u201d.<\/p>\n

The campsite Jason was staying in at Lacanau Oc\u00e9an emptied because of the wildfire. Photograph: Jason\/Guardian Community<\/p>\n

The family has been holidaying in this part of France for more the past 20 years, but Jason believes this will be their last visit. \u201cIt really brought it home how serious it was when we started to drive towards Bordeaux and then north,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw police, fire trucks, ambulances and the big airbus to drop water. We have been aware of wildfires in the area, but this is on another level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always believed in climate change, and this is just an outcome of that. We\u2019ve seen it getting worse over the past five years, definitely. It\u2019s been getting warmer every year. We\u2019ve always known there are wildfires in this region, but we\u2019ve noticed them increasing in number and ferocity for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildfires have forced about 375,000 people to leave their homes in France and Spain. In France, nearly 260,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-715127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}