In the village of Le Porge, 200 firefighters, soldiers, police, and volunteers gathered for a lunch break in 35C heat, surrounded by the acrid smell of ash and cinders. The 'megafire' that broke out 6km away last week has consumed 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of forestland west of Bordeaux. While finally contained, daily outbreaks keep pushing emergency services and hundreds of amateurs to their limits.
"We've turned a corner but we are very, very tired. We have gone beyond what we thought possible," said a senior firefighter, downing a litre of water in under a minute. "We stared into an abyss."
Above, planes dropped water and retardant on new fires, while a drone with thermal cameras tracked the creeping underground blaze - dubbed a 'zombie fire' by local media - that threatens fresh chaos in the coming days, weeks, and months. The landscape is a patchwork of charred trees and intact pine forests, with roads running through a smouldering, deserted wasteland.
Remy Bossion, 46, whose home was damaged, now spends his days cutting 200-metre-wide firebreaks. "Now we are all running on adrenaline, but the crisis is going to pass and that's when it will be really hard. That's when we will weep," he said.
Elsewhere in France, George and Amal Clooney were forced to evacuate their home in the Var region, while fires threaten Fontainebleau, Corsica, and near Dijon. Across Europe, emergency services are stretched: 120 firefighters in the UK have battled a Suffolk blaze for three days, Spain's cumulative fires in 2026 set a record, and in Greece, three firefighters died in Crete and thousands of tourists were evacuated.
The fire weather across the EU has broken records, with scientists noting that climate change models predicted such extremes, though some disasters are arriving earlier and stronger than expected. "We still have a month or more of summer to go. We need rain, a lot of rain," said the anonymous senior firefighter.
French leaders are trying to reassure communities and avert a political crisis. Sophie Brocas, prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, said on Thursday night, "We are gradually getting back to normal," while President Emmanuel Macron insisted it was not the time for lessons while France was still in "full battle."
But the question of the fire's origins and resources is bitterly contested. Nicolas Di Domenico, a local public works contractor, learned of the blaze when his electricians called to say a spark from a faulty machine cleaning a high-tension cable near Saumos ignited the inferno. "It was a short circuit or something of that nature and immediately everything went up because it's all so dry," he said. "The guys there tried to use a fire extinguisher but it was too intense."
Within six hours, the fire travelled 6km to reach Le Porge's outskirts, forcing evacuations as burning cinders fell from a red sky. Di Domenico criticized the authorities: "They should have stopped all work in the forest. Someone got their priorities wrong."
Many accuse the local administration of being "asleep at the wheel" and failing to commit resources fast enough, questioning why France's ageing firefighting planes haven't been replaced. Sebastien Delavoux, head of the CGT union's firefighting section, said, "We feared this for a long time, and were warning about the planes specifically since 2017. This summer has shown we have reached the extreme limit of what is possible for France's firefighters."
The mayor of Le Porge, Martial Zaninetti, which lost 20% of its homes, called the event impossible to predict despite warnings. "The conditions this year are totally exceptional. We've never seen anything like this," he said.
On Wednesday evening, senior firefighters briefed around a map taped to a fire engine, with black humour and Haribo sweets. One officer joked to his replacement, "All right, my little chicken? Ready for another night of work?" The struggle is shifting from a "war of manoeuvre" to a "war of attrition," with individual outbreaks keeping exhausted crews running.
The roads through the Landes now carry convoys of fire trucks, ambulances, and improvised water tankers - agricultural tankers, lorries with plastic containers, and pickups with jerry cans and garden hoses. In Lacanau, volunteers at the sailing club set up a pumping station, with 600 people in a WhatsApp group. Armand Fargeas, 51, said, "What's really great is that you have every generation getting involved. We might not agree on politics, but the spirit of solidarity is amazing."
Hotels and campsites are empty, bistros shut, and sailing boats sit idle. Anne-Marie Nardou, 74, brought fruit and drinks, hoping tourists return: "It's a catastrophe."
Some of the roughly 200,000 evacuees are returning home. An exhibition hall in Bordeaux began emptying, though many still await permission. Frédéric Farrugia, 55, watched via security cameras as firefighters saved his home in Lège, though homes 50 metres away were destroyed. His wife Severine's photo of the inferno as they escaped with their cat led to an offer of accommodation. "It was a bit like the apocalypse," he said. "I think that now the French will realise that the climate is heating up and that we have to react."
Anthony Legrand, a carpenter in Lacanau, noted decades of change: shrinking beaches, green algae, and repeated fires, including one in 2022. "You'd think that would be a warning but no one paid attention," he said. "It'll be the same this time. They've got memories like goldfish."
In Le Porge, the mayor said the "worst had passed for now" but risks remain. "Right now, we need new shelter, clothes, insurance, legal support, doctors and psychologists," Zaninetti added. "But this is a problem for the long term. Unless we find another way to live with the forest, this will just happen again."