BURNT-OUT CAR HUSKS
A specially modified A400M military transport plane dumped tonnes of fire retardant over the fire, the army said.
Three burnt-out car husks and a destroyed trailer lay in a garden near the village of Le Temple, with smoke rising from the charred forest nearby.
Finance Minister Roland Lescure said insurance companies had pledged to pay the housing costs for those displaced, “whether or not their home has been damaged”.
France’s fire has caused a “pyrocumulonimbus” – a giant fire cloud that can create its own winds and packs lightning and sometimes tornadoes that can cause more blazes, according to France’s national firefighters federation, who said the phenomenon had never before been seen in the country.
The weather office has forecast more hot weather in France from Tuesday, with temperatures than could soar to 40C and dry wind.
“All the conditions are in place for the fire to start up again,” Philippe de Gonneville, the mayor of the village of Lege-Cap-Ferret, told AFP.
Fires have roared through 115,000 hectares in France since the start of the year, the authorities have said.
Roaring flames in the UNESCO-listed Fontainebleau forest outside Paris earlier this month devastated 2,000 hectares, in a rare such fire so far north.