For the past 10 days, I’ve been perilously close to the wildfires of the Gironde – and witnessed my first and France’s first fire cloud. I love France, and the prospect of long, sunny summer days, mild winters, and a gentler pace of life ticked all my boxes when, having worked hard and raised a daughter, I moved here in 2021, with Bordeaux on my doorstep. But I’d never bargained for the extremes of weather.
In June of 2022, I found myself in the eye of a tornado. My house is on a hill, with panoramic views, which is great. But that afternoon winds of 140km/hour battered my house. I had a friend staying. Thank god. Between us we battled against a horizontal sheet of rain that chewed up the garden, blew in and buckled my French doors, and tore tiles off the roof. Total cost of damage 12,000 euros.
Another almighty storm in 2023, again in June, wrought havoc in my commune, destroying vines, bringing down trees. Then came 2024, a year marked by floods. Months and months of rain and more rain saw the banks of several rivers burst, flooding towns, villages, and fields. Now, with the wild fires, it’s crazy. The stats are staggering: 220,000 people evacuated from the Gironde and Landes – the biggest evacuation of people in France since the second world war; 300,000 hectares across Spain and France scorched. And no official assessment of the animals lost.
France’s minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbut, stated that the damage to wildlife in the region would be catastrophic, with significant losses among birds, deer and amphibians. Entire groups of deer have been photographed trapped at the forest’s edge. One wildlife officer speaking about areas such as Le Porge, said: “Nothing can survive. The fires came too early, at the height of the breeding season. Birds were nesting, fawns lay hidden in the undergrowth.”
Equally staggering has been the response of the people. Across the nation, we’ve all come together to supply food, clothing and shelter to the victims. Animal rescue centres are co-ordinating their efforts and gathering food, bedding, and medication for lost and wounded animals. Jane Marple, animal rescue veteran and head of a local animal association, told me: “This morning a new part of the inner evacuation zone opened for rescuers. This part of the fire zone has been closed since the fires started. We now have night goggles, as we know many animals will lay low during the day and move in the night.”
My friend and I took animal food to St Thomas de Conac – a small village on the Estuary – where we met Mary with her van half-packed, ready to drive up to Ile d’Oleron. We’ve been told to avoid Bordeaux and head north with provisions. Everyone is pitching in “Bordeaux, we’re coming,” read a post on social media, as a convoy of tractors carrying water tanks joined a motorway into the city. Heading across from the Dordogne came a fleet of ambulances to help with the evacuations.
Such displays of solidarity and comradeship make me incredibly proud to live in this country that I call home. We are all in this together – well, apart from a few ‘ex-pats’ who have complained that their swimming pools have been damaged by falling ash. Yes, really! I do have some sympathy for those gite owners who have lost bookings. The whole of France is not ablaze. It’s a big country. The advice has only ever been to stay away from the Gironde and do not head south via the A63 into Spain, which is battling its own megafire hell.
If the fires had started 20km north of Bordeaux instead of West, I wouldn’t be writing this. I’d be in an evacuation centre, just like the parc d’exposition, grateful for clothes, food, water – grateful to the firefighters working tirelessly to save lives. Friends of mine who live in Merignac, beside the airport, were evacuated and are still not home. Some German friends are still in the parc d’expostion, waiting to return to their holiday home to collect their belongings. Many of the evacuees were holidaymakers and tourists, but many locals have lost their houses, their pets, their livelihoods.
I live about 30 minutes north of Bordeaux – in the shadow of the megafires. I watched from my back porch as the firecloud headed this way. A fire cloud, or pyrocumulonimbus, happens when a wildfire is so intense it built its own thunderstorm. The cloud creates its own lightning, hurls embers up to 30 km ahead of the fire front, and drives the flames in directions no one can predict.
Last Friday, smoke from the Cap Ferat and Biscarosse fires travelled up the Gironde estuary and choked my neighbourhood. The ominous black cloud sat above us for almost 12 hours, dispensing no rain, just bangs and flashes from the thunder and lightning. At 9 o’clock on Saturday morning my neighbours and I were transfixed by the eerie silence that followed. No birds, no wind, just an end-of-the-world glow coming from the south.
As I write, the fires are stable but the smell of smoke still lingers in the air. We suffered temperatures of 42C again yesterday. This is our third big canicule (a period of scorching heat) this year, and each time they last for days or weeks… And still no rain in my commune. My fruit trees have died. All around me, fields of maize and sunflowers are stunted. The grapes are splitting on the vines. Walking in forests is prohibited, so is hunting (no bad thing!).
The French aren’t good with rules. If we see one we like to bend it or break it, but along with the camaraderie I’ve witnessed has come a new respect for nature and the environment. We’ve just received a stark reminder of how fragile it all is. And we are working together to protect it.,My adopted home of south-west France is beautiful, wild and charming – and a million miles away from my former life in London – but I wouldn’t go back no matter what the weather decides to fling at me.
