AFP

A wildfire that officials thought was under control in southwest France has reignited amid a record drought and extreme heat, possibly the result of arson, officials said Wednesday.

More than 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of tinder-dry forest have burned in just 24 hours in the so-called Landiras blaze, the largest of several that scorched the region last month.

It had been brought under control — but not fully extinguished — after burning nearly 14,000 hectares, before flaring up on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of some 6,000 people.

No one has been injured but 16 homes were destroyed or damaged near the village of Belin-Beliet, and officials said six fire-fighting trucks had burned.

“The risks are very high” that parched conditions will allow the fire to spread further, said Martin Guespereau, prefect of the Gironde department.

“The weather is very unfavourable because of the heat, the dry air, the record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground… the fire didn’t go out in July, it went underground,” he told journalists.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said more than 1,000 firefighters were now battling the blaze, adding that investigators suspected arson may be involved.

“There were eight fires that erupted between 8:00 and 9:00 am (0600 and 0700 GMT) that erupted at intervals of a few hundred metres, which is extremely unusual,” he said in Mostuejouls, north of the Mediterranean city of Montpellier, where another fire was raging in the Grands Causses natural park.

He also told reporters that Sweden and Italy would send fire-fighting aircraft to France within 24 hours to help.

– ‘The sky was roaring’ –

“It’s a major fire… much more intense and fast-moving” than at the height of the Landiras blaze last month, Marc Vermeulen of the regional fire-fighting authority told journalists.

“I opened the door last night and there was (a) red wall in front of us, the sky was roaring like the ocean,” said Eliane, a 43-year-old at a temporary shelter for evacuees in Belin-Beliet.

For Christian Fostitchenko, 61, and his partner Monique, waiting at a martial arts dojo in nearby Salles, it was their second evacuation of the summer from their home in Saint-Magne.

“This time we were really scared — the flames were less than 100 metres (328 feet) from the house,” he said.

The fire was spreading toward the A63 motorway, a major artery linking Bordeaux to Spain, with thick smoke forcing the road’s closure between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

France has been buffeted this summer by a record drought that has forced water-use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that many experts warn are being driven by climate change.

Wildfires have also ignited in the dry hills of the southeast and even in the normally lush areas of Brittany along the Channel.

On Wednesday, officials in western France said a wildfire near Angers and Le Mans has burned 1,200 hectares since Monday as nearly 400 firefighters struggle to contain it.

At the end of a dusty track in southwest England where the River Thames usually first emerges from the ground, there is currently scant sign of any moisture at all.

The driest start to a year in decades has shifted the source of this emblematic English river several miles downstream, leaving scorched earth and the occasional puddle where water once flowed.

It is a striking illustration of the parched conditions afflicting swathes of England, which have prompted a growing number of regional water restrictions and fears that an official drought will soon be declared. 

“We haven’t found the Thames yet,” confided Michael Sanders, 62, on holiday with his wife in the area known as the official source of the river.

The couple were planning to walk some of the Thames Path that stretches along its entire winding course — once they can find the waterway’s new starting point.

“It’s completely dried up,” the IT worker from northern England told AFP in the village of Ashton Keynes, a few miles from the source, noting it had been replaced by “the odd puddle, the odd muddy bit”. 

“So hopefully downstream we’ll find the Thames, but at the moment it’s gone.”

The river begins from a underground spring in this picturesque region at the foot of the Cotswolds hills, not far from Wales, before meandering for 215 miles (350 kilometres) to the North Sea.

Along the way it helps supply freshwater to millions of homes, including those in the British capital London.

– ‘So arid’ –

Following months of minimal rainfall, including the driest July in England since the 1930s, the country’s famously lush countryside has gone from shades of green to yellow.

“It was like walking across the savannah in Africa, because it’s so arid and so dry,” exclaimed David Gibbons.

The 60-year-old retiree has been walking the length of the Thames Path in the opposite direction from Sanders — from estuary to source — with his wife and friends.

As the group reached their final destination, in a rural area of narrow country roads dotted with stone-built houses, Gibbons recounted the range of wildlife they had encountered on their journey.

The Thames, which becomes a navigable strategic and industrial artery as it passes through London and its immediate surroundings, is typically far more idyllic upstream and a haven for birdwatching and boating.

However, as they neared the source, things changed.

“In this last two or three days, (there’s been) no wildlife, because there’s no water,” Gibbons said.

“I think water stopped probably 10 miles away from here; there’s one or two puddles,” he added from picturesque Ashton Keynes. 

Andrew Jack, a 47-year-old local government worker who lives about nine miles (15 kilometres) from the village, said locals had “never seen it as dry and as empty as this”.

The river usually run alongside its main street, which boasts pretty houses with flower-filled gardens and several small stone footbridges over the water. 

But the riverbed there is currently parched and cracked, the only visible wildlife some wasps hovering over it, recalling images of some southern African rivers during the sub-continent’s dry season.

– ‘Something’s changed’ –

There will be no imminent respite for England’s thirsty landscape.

The country’s meteorological office on Tuesday issued an amber heat warning for much of southern England and eastern Wales between Thursday and Sunday, with temperatures set to reach the mid-30s degrees Celsius.

It comes weeks after a previous heatwave broke Britain’s all-time temperature record and breached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.

Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that carbon emissions from humans burning fossil fuels are heating the planet, raising the risk and severity of droughts, heatwaves, and other such extreme weather events.

Local authorities are reiterating calls to save water, and Thames Water, which supplies 15 million people in London and elsewhere, is the latest provider to announce forthcoming restrictions.

But Gibbons was remaining sanguine.

“Having lived in England all my life, we’ve had droughts before,” he insisted.

“I think that it will go green again by the autumn.”

Jack was more pessimistic as he walked with his family along the dried-up riverbed, where a wooden measuring stick gauges non-existent water levels. 

“I think there are lots of English people who think ‘great, let’s have some European weather'”, he said.

“But we actually shouldn’t, and it means that something’s changed and something has gone wrong.

“I’m concerned that it’s only going to get worse and that the UK is going to have to adapt to hotter weather as we have more and more summers like this.”

An ailing beluga whale that strayed into France’s Seine river was put down by vets Wednesday during a last-ditch rescue attempt to keep the animal alive, local officials said.

The fate of the whale captured the hearts of people across the world since it was first spotted in the highly unusual habitat of the river that flows through Paris, far from its usual Arctic waters.

Rescuers had worked overnight to lift the male out of the Seine by crane for transfer to a saltwater pen, in a delicate, final effort to save the life of the ailing mammal, which was no longer eating.

It was then driven at a painstakingly slow speed north to the Normandy port of Ouistreham, where vets hoped to release the animal into a habourside pen and then possibly into the wild.

But the experts unanimously decided after examining the beluga on arrival in Ouistreham that there was no other option than to put the male down, the local authority of the Calvados region said.

“Despite the technical and logistical efforts, the condition of the cetacean unfortunately deteriorated during the trip,” it said. 

“Examinations showed that the beluga was in a state of great weakness and its respiratory activity failing. The decision was therefore taken collectively, with the veterinarians, to euthanize it,” it added.

– ‘Tragic outcome’ –

After nearly six hours of work by dozens of divers and rescuers, the 800-kilogramme (1,800-pound) cetacean had been lifted from the river by a net and crane at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT) and placed on a barge under the immediate care of a dozen veterinarians.

The 24 divers involved in the operation and the rescuers handling the ropes had to try several times to lure the animal into the nets to be lifted out of the water.

The beluga was then given a health check and driven to Ouistreham.

“During the journey the vets noted a worsening of his health and in particular the breathing,” said Florence Ollivet-Courtois, a vet for the local emergency services, in a video posted on social media.

“The animal was not getting enough air and suffering visibly. We therefore decided that it made no sense to set it free and proceeded to euthanasia.”

“The transfer was risky, but essential to give an otherwise doomed animal a chance,” the Sea Shepherd NGO, which has been assisting in the rescue, said on Twitter.

“Following the deterioration of his condition, the vets took the decision to euthanize him. We are devastated by this tragic outcome that we knew was very likely,” it said.

The four-metre (13-foot) whale was discovered more than a week ago heading towards Paris and was stranded about 130 kilometres (80 miles) inland from the English Channel at Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne in Normandy.

Since Friday, the animal’s movement inland had been blocked by a lock some 70 kilometres northwest of Paris, and its health deteriorated after it refused to eat.

– Killer whale also died –

This is the second drama involving a big marine mammal in an unexpected area to grip France in the last months.

A sick killer whale — a member of the dolphin family also known as an orca — was spotted in the Seine in May but died after attempts failed to guide the animal back to the sea.

Interest in the beluga’s fate has spread far beyond France, generating a large influx of financial donations and other aid from conservation groups as well as individuals, officials said.

While belugas migrate south in the autumn to feed as ice forms in their native Arctic waters, they rarely venture so far.

According to France’s Pelagis Observatory, which specialises in sea mammals, the nearest beluga population is off the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway, 3,000 kilometres from the Seine.

The trapped whale is only the second beluga ever sighted in France. The first was pulled out of the Loire estuary in a fisherman’s net in 1948.