Firefighters in France managed to stop the spread of the megafire that returned to the region of Gironde on Tuesday after lying dormant for roughly a month. The holdover fire or “zombie fire,” as it is colloquially referred to, is a fire which remains dormant underground (typically during winter months) and can return to its destructive blaze with the help of persistent dry conditions.
Temperatures in the area reached 104 Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) over the past week, contributing to the return of the wildfire.
On Saturday French officials announced that the megafire halted overnight thanks to “significant means employed,” including hundreds of auxiliaries across Europe who came to the aid of at least a thousand French firefighters to help control the catastrophic blaze, which forced 10,000 people in the Gironde region to evacuate their homes.
This past week in Brittany another wildfire burned 988 acres (400 hectares) of woods in what is known as the “King Arthur forest.” That fire has not been extinguished but it has been halted. In the Jura region of eastern France 1,235 acres (500 hectares) of land also burned, marking more than 148,263 acres (60,000 hectares) of land in France that has been burned so far this year.
"It's hard for me to think that I will not see this forest again like it was," said Hervé Trentin, a firefighter in Gironde who fought the blaze for 48 hours without resting. "I'm 53 years old, and this forest will need more than 30 years to recover."
"This is our forest,” he added, weeping. “It is heart-breaking to watch it burn."
France is now expected to experience a continuation of storms, including thunderstorms and heavy rain, this week which should drop temperatures and help mitigate the wildfires across the county.