French firefighters battle wildfire close to Nice airport

Nearly 100 firefighters were using a helicopter to contain a wildfire in the French municipalities of Cagnes-sur-Mer and Villeneuve-Loubet, close to Nice international airport, officials said on Tuesday.

By late afternoon firefighters were about to contain the blaze near Cagnes-sur-Mer, a spokesperson for the local fire department told Reuters, adding that operations were expected to continue during the evening.

There were no victims or damage to housing, the spokesperson said. A spokesperson of France’s civil aviation authority DGAC said there had been “no impact on air traffic for the time being”.

The fire affected an uninhabited area close to a highway, a local town hall official said. Highway and rail traffic was interrupted, Nice police said on social media network X, formerly known as Twitter.

Extreme weather throughout July has caused havoc across the planet, with record temperatures in China, the United States and southern Europe sparking forest fires, evacuations, water shortages and a rise in heat-related hospital admissions.

The Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur region, home to large cities such as Marseille, Nice and Aix-en-Provence, was being closely watched amid the prevalence of high temperatures and strong winds in an area historically prone to wildfires.

The Bouches-du-Rhone department on Tuesday was placed under a “red alert”, with authorities seeing a “very high risk” of wildfires. Over 300 firefighters were battling to contain fires near the city of Arles, police said.

There were several fire outbreaks in southeastern France on Tuesday afternoon, and authorities closed access to parks and markets to minimise the risks to residents, according to a report in Nice Matin newspaper.