{"id":725475,"date":"2026-08-03T04:55:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T04:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725475\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T04:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T04:55:41","slug":"france-and-spain-wildfires-witnesses-describe-wall-of-flames-fear-and-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725475\/","title":{"rendered":"France and Spain wildfires: Witnesses describe &#8216;wall of flames&#8217;, fear and stress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chris De Abreu, who is from Kent but works in France and has a flat in Bordeaux, described how &#8220;over the weekend the city was engulfed in smoke with the sun disappearing behind&#8221;, with an &#8220;orange-like filter&#8221; over the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Though De Abreu said he is less concerned about his flat which lies on the other side of the river, he &#8220;can see a number of people worried about what is to come&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elsewhere, Rachel Hanberry told BBC Radio 5 Live that her beachfront home in Biscarrosse Plage, which lies about 63km (40 miles) from Bordeaux, is located next to the town&#8217;s evacuation point. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Everyone came here on Thursday night,&#8221; she said. &#8220;People had nowhere to go. We offered our home to people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The community there has &#8220;lost so much&#8221;, she added. &#8220;The stress and trauma that you feel as someone living here is immense.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">About 700km away, in Cotignac in the south-east of France, Jo Barnes and her family returned to their home on Saturday, having evacuated for four days after a fire rapidly moved towards their property. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A wall of orange flames came roaring up over the hill,&#8221; Barnes said. &#8220;On Friday afternoon, the fire came back to our area&#8230; within 10 metres of the back of our house, we have a gas tank here, it was all very dramatic.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Though the surrounding hillside was blackened and charred, the town of Cotignac was undamaged and the Barnes&#8217; family home left intact. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris De Abreu, who is from Kent but works in France and has a flat in Bordeaux, described&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-725475","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\/725475","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=725475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}