Fresh efforts to check forest fires in France

France’s biggest forest fire in the southeast of the country on the Mediterranean coast has been brought under control, but it has not yet been extinguished, according to prefect of Aude, Christian Pouget, where the summer fire has destroyed [JOOO hectares of forest land, about 42,000 acres.

- 

He said, “The fire will not be declared extinguished for several days. There is still a lot of work to be done.” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou remarked after visiting the disaster hit province that it was a “catastrophe on an unprecedented scale”, and went on to observe, “What is happening today is linked to global warming and linked to drought.”

Europe, especially the southern part, including south of France, Spain and Portugal, has been facing high temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius. The diminished rainfall has created drought conditions. It is the dryness of the forest area that has made it vulnerable to forest fires, which are a seasonal feature in this part of Europe.