A firefighter walks in front of burning trees as a wildfire rages near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva, File)

2026-07-31T09:39:14Z

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — Firefighters in southwestern France were working to control the last hot spots of a massive wildfire on Friday that has burned an area four times the size of Paris and forced thousands out of their homes.

The blazes that burned 42,000 hectares (about 162 square miles) of pine forest and touristic resort areas in Bordeaux’s Gironde region on the Atlantic coast haven’t spread for several days.

Government officials said lower temperatures and higher humidity overnight were helping ease pressures on beleaguered fire squads, who turned their attention to forests and undergrowth along dunes of fine sand.

Europe is facing an extremely hot summer, fueling wildfires from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. The United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey all battled blazes on Thursday.

The wildfire in southwest France initially forced 224,000 people to flee. Authorities have allowed 144,000 evacuees to return this week.

Officials on Friday seemed cautiously optimistic.

“It’s stabilized, but not totally stopped,” the French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told RTL radio on Friday. Hot spots remain.”

Fire crews remained mobilized.

Nunez also said in a social media post that Ukraine was to dispatch 70 civil security personnel and 10 vehicles in the coming days to help strengthen the deployment.