Hundreds evacuated by boat from French peninsula as wildfire spreads

On 24 July, hundreds of people fled by boat from the Cap Ferret peninsula in western France after authorities ordered an evacuation because of a fast-moving wildfire.

City authorities said boats had carried more than 400 people from the peninsula, which lies on France's Atlantic coast west of Bordeaux.

The fire, burning near one of France's wine regions, had consumed an area roughly one and a half times the size of Manhattan. It was one of several blazes in France during the summer vacation season.

French authorities ordered thousands of tourists on the southwestern Atlantic coast to leave campsites and holiday homes. Firefighters, supported by water-bombing planes, were working to control the fires.

President Emmanuel Macron said France had invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to ask for help. He warned that the crisis remained very intense.

Satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed that the total area of land burned so far this year in EU countries was the second largest on record.