Extreme, rapidly changing weather makes these blazes much harder to control.
French crews are using aircraft to combat the fires — both planes that drop fire retardant and water-bombers such as the Canadair. The Canadair can scoop about 6,000 litres of water from a lake or the sea in roughly 12 seconds and release it directly onto the flames.
On particularly dangerous days, fully loaded aircraft patrol high-risk zones before any fires are reported so they can respond within minutes of a sighting. Planes often operate in continuous shuttles while retardant is laid along the fire’s edges and ground teams attack the flames directly.
In Gironde, roughly 2,500 firefighters, 1,500 military personnel and about 1,200 police officers and gendarmes have been deployed to tackle the blaze.
Even with that deployment, Gironde official Jean Luc Gleyze said authorities do not have enough people or trucks, and he believes France as a whole lacks sufficient resources to meet the scale of the crisis.
