Some 250 hectares of forest, mainly pines, were destroyed in a fire in Gironde, which mobilized some 160 firefighters in the evening, without endangering homes at this stage, said firefighters and prefecture.
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The fire, of undetermined origin at this stage, broke out around 4.30 p.m. in the Avensan sector in the Médoc, nearly 40 km north-west of Bordeaux, and progressed fairly quickly on a northern axis. -South, helped by a strong northerly wind, which blew most of the day.
Around 9:00 p.m., the fire still mobilized 160 firefighters, 70 vehicles, supported by two Dash water bombers, whose rotations ceased with the night, told AFP the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service ( SDIS) from Gironde.
With a lull in the wind, the firefighters hoped for decisive progress in their action in the hours to come.
No home was however threatened in the evening or evacuation envisaged, preventive action with air support having made it possible to protect inhabited areas, the same source said.
No firefighter was injured, nor equipment or vehicle damaged.
The destroyed vegetation is mainly pine, seedlings of various ages.
The Avensan fire is one of the first major fires of the year in Gironde, half of the area of which is covered with forest, and which is home to a large part of the Landes de Gascogne, a massif of nearly a million hectares.
Gironde is the leading French department in terms of number of fire starts, with nearly 1,000 per year on average, but areas destroyed (around a thousand hectares on average) relatively low, according to figures from the prefecture.
