‘Fire Clouds’ Sweep Across World-Famous Wine Region as Emergency Evacuations Spiral
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A ‘fire cloud’ has formed above France’s Bordeaux region as the south-west of the country is ravaged by fierce wildfires.
The pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a weather phenomenon ordinarily seen during volcanic eruptions, now threatens to exacerbate blazes that have already driven more than 360,000 people from their homes in France and Spain.
The clouds, created by sudden updrafts of hot air, ash, and smoke, can produce lightning that risks sparking more fires.
The blazes have already torn through the Cap Ferret peninsula, an upscale area often compared to New York’s Hamptons, and are now just seven miles from Bordeaux, at the heart of the country’s winelands.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he would convene a cabinet meeting to discuss the emergency after activating the government’s crisis response units on Sunday.
The infernos come hot on the heels of successive heatwaves across the country that have left the landscape dry and parched, though officials have also attributed some of the fires to deliberate acts of arson.
Fire chiefs say it could take “several weeks or months” to fully extinguish the flames.
https://news.sky.com/story/europe-wildfires-latest-french-tourist-hotspot-evacuated-as-national-emergency-declared-in-spain-13566532">Read it at Sky News
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fire-clouds-sweep-across-bordeaux-as-emergency-evacuations-spiral-across-france/">Read more at The Daily Beast.