Massive southern France wildfire not advancing but still not under control, officials say

Firefighters have managed to stem the advance of a fast-moving blaze in the southeast of France but have not yet gained control of the country’s largest wildfire in more than 70 years, according to local officials.

Strong winds fanned flames in the southeastern Var region yesterday, leading to them raging through 1,000 hectares in just several hours in what the regional prefect Simon Babre describes as flames moving “faster than a galloping horse.”

But “no new areas have been impacted” on Saturday, says Babre.

Regional firefighting official Eric Pitault says “the fire is still not under control.”

“We are working to get it under control in the coming days,” he says, adding his teams were especially monitoring the edges of the forest.

Inhabitants allege a brushwood-clearing machine accidentally started the blaze with a spark on Wednesday last week.

The inferno has ripped through 42,000 hectares — an area larger than the US city of Detroit — of pine forest and destroyed around 240 homes along the Atlantic coastline near the winemaking capital of Bordeaux. Some 220,000 people were evacuated from the flames, but most of them have since returned

France has for weeks been battling wildfires after a series of deadly heatwaves that have dried up riverbeds and vegetation, in extreme weather events scientists have linked to human-made climate change.