22-Year-Old French Volunteer Firefighter Dies Fighting Savoie Wildfire

A 22-year-old volunteer firefighter from SDIS 73 died while fighting a forest fire in Savoie, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Wednesday. Nunez wrote on X that the firefighter spent part of the night on duty before the fatal incident. Wildfires have forced thousands of residents from their homes in France.

One blaze in southern France near the Spanish border prompted the evacuation of more than 10,000 people from two dozen towns and villages earlier this week. That fire injured 16 people, including four firefighters, and burned 4,600 hectares in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, according to local prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe.

The Trevillach wildfire in France's Pyrenees-Orientales has scorched 4,900 hectares.

The fire burned near the third stage of the Tour de France, which measures 196 km from Granollers, Spain, to Les Angles, France. Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said the stage was closed to the public on Monday to give firefighters access and that the following motorcade was kept to a minimum. Portugal and France activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism over the weekend.

The European Commission has pre-positioned 777 firefighters from 14 countries in high-risk zones across Cyprus, Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. On the Spanish side of the border, a separate fire burned 2,200 hectares, 97 percent of it inside the protected area of Les Gavarres. Regional authorities said the fire was stable and expected to be fully extinguished during the week.

Police arrested an employee of a company contracted by Catalonia's regional government who is suspected of starting that fire with an angle grinder beside a road. Heatwaves in May and June left large areas of France and western Europe dry. Temperatures are forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius in southwest France this week.