Firefighters in France are into a second straight day of trying to bring a fast-moving wildfire under control in the Fontainebleau forest, just south of Paris. Officials have described the blaze as "virulent" and of "exceptional scale", a description that reflects both the speed at which it has spread and the scale of the response it has demanded. The fire has already forced the partial closure of France's main north-south highway, snarling road traffic through the region as crews try to keep the flames from spreading further.
Could the fire have been started deliberately?
France's interior minister, Laurent Nunez, has raised the possibility that the fire did not start naturally. Officials say the flames have already torn through some 800 hectares of forest in an area located roughly 40 miles (60km) south-east of the French capital. Speaking on Monday, Nunez said investigators are actively looking into whether the blaze was set intentionally rather than sparked by accident or natural causes such as heat and dry vegetation. "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 in a statement. The presence of multiple separate ignition points clustered so close together is unusual for a naturally occurring blaze, which is why investigators are treating arson as a real possibility rather than ruling it out.
A firefighting response rarely seen around the capital
The scale of the emergency has triggered measures that are highly unusual for the greater Paris region. Eric Brocardi of France's national federation of firefighters said this is the first time firefighting planes have had to be sent up from the south of the country, an area that is normally drier and hotter than Paris and therefore better equipped for aerial firefighting, in order to tackle a blaze so close to the capital. Two firefighting helicopters and an observation aircraft have also been deployed to support the ground crews already battling the flames. "The aim is to save lives and property," Brocardi said, underlining that protecting nearby homes and residents remains the immediate priority even as the fire continues to spread.
Chaos for drivers and rail passengers
The Fontainebleau fire is not the only blaze disrupting daily life around Paris. A separate fire had earlier blocked a highway running east out of the capital and also disrupted a high-speed rail line that connects Paris to the south of France. French rail operator SNCF said on Sunday evening that passengers travelling to or from Paris's Gare de Lyon station were facing delays of up to six hours as a direct result of the disruption, leaving many travellers stranded or forced to rearrange their journeys at short notice.
A summer already marked by extreme heat
The fires are breaking out against the backdrop of the Paris region's third heatwave of the year, part of a summer during which several countries across Europe have recorded broken temperature records. The extreme heat has consequences that go well beyond the forests now on fire: three nuclear power stations in France have had to be temporarily shut down, a step taken specifically to avoid discharging warm cooling water into rivers and waterways that are already overheated and under environmental strain.
Part of a bigger national picture
The Fontainebleau blaze adds to what is already proving to be a difficult year for firefighters across France. Julien Marion, the country's director general of civil security, said on Friday, before this latest fire even broke out, that wildfires had already burned through roughly 25,000 hectares of land nationwide since the start of the year, a figure that underscores how widespread and persistent the fire risk has become well before the traditional peak of summer.
Why wildfires keep getting worse across Europe
Scientists point to this pattern as part of a much larger trend: climate change is pushing up temperatures across the planet, and Europe is warming faster than almost any other region. According to the Copernicus climate service, the continent is heating up at roughly twice the pace of the global average. That accelerated warming is behind the more frequent summer heatwaves now hitting countries like France, it is placing growing pressure on Europe's water supplies, and it is fuelling wildfires that burn hotter, faster and over a larger area, exactly the conditions now playing out in the Fontainebleau forest.
