Thousands of people are being evacuated in these hours in the south of France due to a huge fire around Gonfaron, in the Var department, which has already burned four thousand hectares of forest. This was reported by France Info, according to which during the night the inhabitants of many localities were invited to leave their homes after the fire that broke out at 18.30 and for which 750 firefighters were mobilized.
The prefect of the Var department announced that the evacuation was “a precautionary measure” and that there are no casualties. But the fire is still “very powerful”. The evacuations took place in the hinterland of Cavalaire and Saint-Tropez – where the indication is to “not clog the roads to let the emergency vehicles work” – and in particular around the villages of Grimaud and La Môle, a spokeswoman for the fire department told AFP.
The department had been placed on orange alert for the “heat wave”, due to the strong heat experienced by the south-east in recent days, with temperatures reaching 40 ° C. The fire, which broke out on Monday in the Sigues motorway service area on the A57 about 100 km north-east of Toulon, spread over about 4 thousand hectares. France joins Greece, Italy, Algeria, Spain and Morocco among Mediterranean countries in the grip of fires in this hot summer 2021.