A car of the red cross passes in front of a forest fire near Seillons-Source- d'Argent, southern France. Photo / AP
A car of the red cross passes in front of a forest fire near Seillons-Source- d'Argent, southern France. Photo / AP
By David Chazan and James Rothwell
Dozens of holidaymakers prepared for another night sleeping on the beach as bushfires forced them to flee a campsite on the French Riviera.
Anne Davies, 74, from Exeter in the UK, was with a group of family and friends who were woken in the early hours yesterday and told to leave the Camping du Domaine site in Bormes-les-Mimosas, south-eastern France.
"We left all our things. All we had time to bring was our passports," Davies told the Daily Telegraph from the beach where they sought refuge, fringed by palm trees and pines.
Smoke rose from thickly wooded hills behind the seafront and there was an acrid smell of burning vegetation. Firefighting planes roared overhead, spraying water in an effort to contain the fires.
Roads into the resort were closed to traffic and firemen directed drivers to turn back. "It's too dangerous. We've got the strong Mistral wind here and the fire can spread or change direction very quickly," said an emergency official who declined to be named.
Davies was not looking forward to bedding down on the beach again.
"It was cold when we got here last night, at two in the morning. We spent seven-and-a-half hours here without blankets or sleeping bags. Tonight we've got sleeping bags, and we've bought bread and cheese for supper. It's not too comfortable but we're not miserable. It's the Dunkirk spirit."
Sue Batty, 67, her friend, said the group returned to the campsite during the day and slept for an hour or two in their caravan. "Then we were evacuated again, but this time we brought our essentials with us. We're not sure if we'll be allowed to sleep on the beach as we've been told by campsite staff that it's polluted, but it looks very clean."
Tourist Francoise Roparse, who was visiting the south of France, found shelter in a sailing club near Bormes. "First, it was a bit the panic," Roparse said. "We tried to gather all important things ... Obviously, we forgot a lot."
The sun sets behind burnt pine trees in the village of Sao Jose das Matas, near Macao, central Portugal. Photo / AP
Some campers accepted an offer of alternative accommodation elsewhere on the Riviera and left by bus, but many decided to remain in Bormes-les-Mimosas.
"We didn't want to get into a bus and be taken to an unknown destination," Batty said. "We've been coming here for 35 years and we've seen fires before in the area, but never anything like this. We saw the fire heading in our direction before we came to the beach last night.
"That was the scariest thing. We could see the flames from the campsite so we didn't hang around when they said it was an emergency."
Palls of black and grey smoke rising from the brush-covered hills around Bormes-les-Mimosas were visible from 25km away. Flames could be seen on some hillsides from the resort.
The bushfires have raged across south-eastern France and forced more than 12,000 people to leave their homes and campsites overnight.
Large swaths of Mediterranean forest have been left bare and blackened after three days of fires. About 250 trailer homes, a hangar, an atelier and several vehicles were burned in the blazes, but no one has been injured so far, the prefect of the Var region said.
Firefighters continued to battle the flames n Bormes-Les-Mimosas and La Londe-Les-Maures as well as on the island of Corsica.
A man uses a bucket to fight a fire in a field outside the village of Sao Jose das Matas, near Macao, central Portugal. Photo / AP
Bushfires have also affected Portugal this week, where 2300 firefighters with more than 700 vehicles have been tackling 13 fires.
The worst-hit areas were located 200km northeast of Lisbon, where the fires briefly forced the evacuation of some hamlets and the closure of a section of highway.
In Italy, where fires have raged for weeks, firefighters responded to 26 requests for water and fire retardant air crops throughout central and southern Italy, including Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia, Lazio and Puglia.
The Coldiretti agriculture lobby said 50 million bees were destroyed along with their hives in fires on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Coldiretti said another 20 per cent of the bee population is estimated to have become disoriented by all the smoke and died as a result.
