ARBONNE-LA-FORET, FRANCE – France on Monday battled two fires that scorched over 1,300 hectares in a forest south of Paris on Monday, as police arrested two people suspected of arson.
The fire erupted Sunday in the sprawling Fontainebleau forest, a former royal hunting estate that today is dotted with quiet villages, about 60 kilometers southeast of the capital.
As the region sweltered through its latest heat wave, the wildfire — rare in the north of the country — quickly spread across the UNESCO biosphere reserve, disrupting rail and road traffic during a busy holiday travel long weekend.
Throughout the day, aircraft in the skies and firefighters on the ground were trying to douse the flames.
By Monday afternoon, it had raced across almost 1,200 hectares, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
He said a second fire broke out on Monday afternoon and had ravaged about 100 hectares. Around 1,000 people in and around Fontainebleau had been evacuated.
One of the two suspects arrested is an 18-year-old man without a criminal record. His hands were covered in soot and he had a lighter when he was detained, according to a source close to the case.
Clement Boher, a 37-year-old resident, said he and his family had been on alert since he saw plumes of smoke rise about the forest on Sunday night.
“Like everyone else, we’re on standby, vehicles ready and a backpack packed. All we can do is wait,” he said.
The scale of the fire led to the deployment of four Canadair aircraft — an unprecedented move in the greater Paris region — as well as two Dash planes and three water-bombing helicopters.
A total of 187 water drops were carried out, said the commander of the rescue operations, Jean-Marc Sicard, on site on Monday evening.
At nightfall, around 600 firefighters remained mobilized and would be taking turns to fight the flames on the ground, he said.
“The fire is still spreading” because the weather conditions were “not very favorable” on Monday evening, despite “a brief lull,” he said.
Nunez said on an evening television news show that 59 people had been arrested across France and two in connection with the Fontainebleau fire for “deliberate or accidental arson.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said on social media platform X that all available resources had been deployed to fight what he described as “an exceptionally large wildfire.”
Nunez said authorities were investigating whether the fire was started intentionally.
“There were about 10 fire ignition points within a perimeter of 1,000 meters, which suggests that it could have been deliberately set,” he said.
France is weathering a third heat wave in less than three months, with fires raging in several parts of the country over the past week.
It is the latest such deadly episode of extreme weather, the increasing frequency of which in recent decades scientists have linked to man-made climate change.
On Sunday night, residents chipped in to help.
Farmers in tractors tugged water cisterns and aimed hoses at the blaze.
Cindy Fuyard, a 45-year-old nurse, fled her home in the village of Le Vaudoue then returned to give firefighters access to the water in her swimming pool.
“With global warming, it was to be expected,” she said, referring to the forest fire so far north.
The fire shut the A6 motorway that leads out of Paris to the southeast and parts of the highway remained closed Monday, according to Google Maps.
But the national railway service said it had repaired cables burnt by the fire on Sunday, allowing it to resume normal services for fast trains connecting the capital to the southeastern city of Lyon.
The country recorded more than 2,000 excess deaths during the June heat wave, and 300 during the high temperatures in late May, according to official figures.
Since the start of the year, wildfires have scorched some 25,000 hectares of land in France — an area nearly as big as Edinburgh and twice as much as during the same period last year, the director general of civil security, Julien Marion, said on Friday.
Temperatures were expected to remain high through France’s Bastille Day national holiday on Tuesday, according to the Meteo-France weather service.
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