More
than 10,000 residents and tourists were moved after a forest fire
started near the coastal commune of Bormes-les-Mimosas, around 40 km
(nearly 25 miles) from Toulon, one of the country's southernmost towns.
Beachgoers in La Croix-Valmer, near Saint-Tropez, watch as the fire spreads.
Sunbathers
lounging on a beach near Saint-Tropez looked on as a wildfire raged
nearby. Children played in the sand, while others snapped pictures on
their phones, as flames engulfed pine trees and sent plumes of black
smoke billowing overhead.
A
combination of strong Mistral winds and a lack of rain have fueled the
fires, which took hold in the French Riviera and on the island of
Corsica, off the southern French coast.
Paul
Adriaansens, a tourist visiting from Antwerp, said he was having lunch
with his family on the beach in La Croix-Valmer on Wednesday when the
wind changed. They rushed back to their rental house to beat the blaze.
"We
are fully packed and ready to go the minute we need to," Adriaansens
told CNN in a phone interview. "As soon as we see flames we'll get out."
The conversation was cut short as police and firefighters arrived to
evacuate Adriaansens' family.
It's peak holiday season for the region.
Travel
pictures shared by tourists on social media captured firefighting
planes circling over sandy beaches and pink sunsets punctuated by smoke
clouds.
Anna Tomlinson, a British tourist, shared a photo on Instagram
of the sunrise in Bormes-les-Mimosas, a village in Var, after what she
said was an "intense morning." Tomlinson was evacuated from her campsite
at around 3 a.m. and spent the next several hours watching from a
nearby beach as firefighters battled the blaze, according to her post.
People avacuated from homes and campsites take refuge on the beach in Bormes-les-Mimosas.
A woman inspects the damage following a fire in Bormes-les-Mimosas.
Over
100 firefighting operations have been launched since the blazes broke
out, with planes flying over the Bormes area since early Wednesday
morning, dropping water bombs on the wildfires.
Around 3,000 campers were among those evacuated from Bormes, La Londe, and La Lavandou, the prefecture of Var said in a statement. Many ended up sleeping on the beach at Cap Bénat, a rocky peninsula in Bormes-les-Mimosas, as smoke rose in the distance.
Matthieu
Dany, a 23-year-old French designer who has been coming to the area for
vacations since he was a child, says he's never seen fires like this.
People watch smoke billow over Carros, southeastern France.
"From
our villa in the mountains we can see smoke everywhere. We can see
homes burning," Dany told CNN. "I was on the beach earlier, but came
back because the fires were getting worse."
"Almost everyone on the beach was looking to the hills, taking photos and videos of the fires," he added.
Late
July and August are when many French residents head out "on holiday,"
and visit the Riviera (or the Côte d'Azur, as the Riviera is known in
French).
In Londes-les-Maures,
fires began to burn just before 11 p.m. local time and, despite the
dispatch of 540 firefighters, have not yet been brought under control.
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire burning in Artigues.
A firefighting plane drops water over a blaze in Mirabeau, France.
The
areas of Croix-Valmer, south of the famed resort of Saint-Tropez, and
Artigues, east of the regional hub of Aix-en-Provence, saw hundreds of
hectares -- around 12 square miles -- of land burned but those blazes
are under control, the statement says. A total of nine firefighters
working on those two fires were injured.
In all, more than 4,000 firefighters and soldiers have been deployed to the area, France's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
President Emmanuel Macron shared his support for the firefighters battling blazes on Wednesday.
"Admiration and courage for those who fight tirelessly against the fire ravaging some of our territories," Macron said on Twitter.
