PARIS (Reuters) – A fire burnt through 500 hectares of land and destroyed a campsite in the south of France, with 2,000 people evacuated during the night, French regional authorities said on Tuesday.
The fire is now under control, the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter. No residents or tourists were injured and most of the evacuees have been able to return to their accommodation, authorities said.
The blaze tore through a tourist area in the Pyrenees-Orientales region near the Spanish border, which was vulnerable due to “intense heat, dryness and tumultuous winds of up to 180km/h”, authorities said.
Eight hundred campers will need to rehoused, Darmanin said.
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi, editing by Ed Osmond)
