On holiday near wildfires - WTF to do?

[thetinsoldier]

We’re in Bordeaux, 40k from the fires. It’s really smoky, the sun is covered by smoke and it’s really quite scary. Have spoken to neighbours and they say the smoke is just being blown this way, we’re not in danger, but it’s horrible and scary.

What would you do??

Good luck OP and stay safe. So sorry that this is happening. Fires everywhere at the moment, very worrying.

I'm sure the hire companies will be willing to arrange the hire car to be left at a different depot and you could probably put keys in the post to the original place.

I'd email the owner and suggest sending the keys on to them, they will get it when the post gets back to normal and asking the car hire company for assistance in this situation.

Not knowing where you are you could probably catch the same train just further up the country on the day. If it has stops near a main city, the car hire place might have a depot there as well.

Can I ask if you have gained that impression from French media/alerts and statement put out by local officials or by what's been written in English language MSM?

From what I saw about the only time the official decision making appeared on the edge of getting wobbly was late Friday/early sat when the Met conditions changed and there was some mixed messaging between Paris and the local Prefete.

We don’t go South in June/July/August; I can’t remember the last time we did. I know too many people whose holidays have been spoilt by ridiculous temperatures and wildfires. May and late September are often the best times to head to southern Europe IMO.

Hope you’re doing ok OP. 🤞

Are you there? Or is it a bit of French bashing based on English MSM?

I rally wouldn’t be going back to your accomodation OP. The fire may not have spread to that area but there are still emergency services trying to do their job and residents trying to salvage what they can.

Just take the hire car to another depot and put the keys in the post.

I certainly reckon evacuating >200,000 civilians in an orderly manner, many into pre-planned contingency accommodation (e.g. Bordeaux expo Centre), whilst at the same time getting fire services into the area is anything but a "shambles"

OTOH read the likes of the Daily Mail which seems to have insisted on scattering quotes and events into an overall broadbrush story with no care taken over the chronology or sequence of what happened and you'll come away with a different impression.

I'm on holiday on the borders of Dordogne and Lot et Garonne, about 1.5 hrs from Bordeaux and the opposite side to the source of the fires. It was very smoky and horrible over the weekend but woke up yesterday to blue skies and clean air and it was totally different. The wind direction must have changed. I visit this area often so I am on a local facebook page for British expats and visitors. Someone asked if they should cancel their holiday or not and everyone said 'no, don't be daft, it's absolutely fine, we are all safe.'

I understand that most of them work here and want to protect their leisure and hospitality businesses, gite bookings etc, and they want to protect the local economy in general. But at best you risk holidaying in two weeks of an oppressive, smoky haze that spoils your holiday and at worst you risk being evacuated and told to go home if the fires spread closer to your location, or new ones start.

I've not felt a need to go home yet due to being a good distance from the fires, although smoke in the air has been an issue. But had I not already arrived before the fires started I do think I would have re-thought my plans and changed my accommodation to somewhere much further away. Especially if my air bnb T&Cs allowed me to do so without losing the full payment.

As it is, everything looks good right now, but the weather is due to get very hot again over the rest of this week, so we'll see if that causes further headaches for the firefighters.

I've been very impressed- at a distance, I'm in the UK and have no connections to the South of France- with how the authorities are dealing with the immediate crisis.

However on the news this morning - can't remember whether R4 or World Service as I tend to flip between them - there was a report that Bourdeaux airport is still delivering as many people into the region as it's taking away. Obviously the airlines are going to do this because it's what makes economic sense to them. But as an outsider I can't help thinking that's nuts and people should be officially dissuaded from coming at the moment?
Any thoughts from you as someone in the area?

Are you suggesting deforestation? As that sounds a really odd idea as trees are also a protective factor against global warming as they absorb greenhouse gases - especially carbon dioxide.

I would be impressed at any government who could deal with this situation perfectly. Nature is too powerful and unpredictable for us sometimes.

A few days ago I caught a piece on the radio where a chap from the local fire service (or something official anyway, I didn’t catch the whole interview) mentioned that he had hoped the 2022 (?) fires had changed behaviour and thinking about forests but locals and officials had been reluctant to follow his advice.

The forests in these areas are mostly pine which burns really, really well. When it starts there’s little that naturally stops it until it burns through everything. He advocated creating areas clear of pine across the whole region, confining the pine to isolated pockets. The cleared areas should be replanted with broadleaved trees which don’t contain the same resins so don’t burn as well and forest fires in them tend to die out faster.

Thr official line ATM is definitely one of dissuading holidaymakers from entering the area effected or possibly going to be effected by fires..

But of course from a flights POV incoming passengers can be Bordeaux/Regional natives, people on business and then of course there will be holidaymakers arriving at BOD but immediately heading off into areas where life is going on as normal, such as the Lot, the Gers, etc, etc...basically a big chunk of south west France.

I'm not sure that many holidaymakers arriving in BOD by air would have been planning a camping holiday in the Gironde forest/the Landes (I suspect they mainly travel by road) so TBH I'd not expect inbound passenger numbers to have dropped that much.

The pines have been there for hundreds of years. Like since the revolution. They are not like the pines that were planted since the second world war.

90% of the fires have been started deliberately. The rest have been carelessness.

I totally agree with clearing huge swathes of the trees and replanting with native deciduous trees. But again, the powers that be would rather not.

I wouldn’t say the police running house to house and people having to leave their pets to die is especially ‘orderly’.

Nor the budget cuts to the fire service and now they don’t have the planes to put out the fires. It’s terrible the number of firefighters that have been hurt.

It is okay for the French government to be scrutinised - we would expect the same here. It’s not French bashing!

Encouraging tourists to still continue to arrive is sheer madness and motivated purely by money.

We were in Provence with wild fires there a few years ago, France is no stranger to wild fires. But this is MN, and I have noticed this many times before, that many can’t bear to apply the same standards and hold governments to account - they reserve that purely for the U.K. I feel very sad at the loss of wildlife, forests and the panic so many are experiencing. This is going to be the new normal in Europe.

they have told tourists multiple times to leave. Why are you still there!

If you are too tired to read a whole thread, you can click on 'OP's posts' and just read those where several days ago, she posted that they have left the area.

It's quite right that all governments should be held to account but there's always the problem that hindsight is 20/20.

Sorry about the pets but 200k plus evacuated with no significant casualties is definitely on the "orderly" side of things and most definitely not a "shambles".

Rather than Monday morning quarter backing the French actions what would you have done ahead of time to prevent the events we've seen in the Gironde and how would you have improved the outcome once the very first fire was detected?

You do have to of course consider that both forestry industry and the holiday industry is a major part of the economy of that part of France, I'm not sure banning either would be an acceptable solution for many.

Why come onto a thread 4 days after it’s been started and not read OPs posts?

And be obnoxious to the OP who is going through something traumatic.

Did your attitude towards someone else make you feel better @TiredMummma?

Police are not running door to door, they double checked following mass evacuation alerts… which is a diligent thing to do.

i am 100% sure that UK would make an absolute shambles of it. As opposed to France. We can actually look at evacuations from Afghanistan and Sudan where famed UK civil service showed itself very incompetent as compared to evacuations of civilians organised by French and other countries - and French were even evacuating civilians of other countries not just their own. They were proactive and started evacuating early as opposed to Brits who reacted very late and as result didn’t even initially had resources to evacuate their own civilians.
This belief in superiority of UK government structures and civil service is just pure British superiority complex (not based on reality anymore)
also French are very good at holding their government to account, not just by writing polite letters to their MPs, but by actively protesting

These are national parks with heritage pines, not just random pine forests. I can imagine the outcry in the UK if something similar was suggested to the UK national parks. I mean you can just raze them over and problem will be solved, why is this not considered, huh?

🙄🙄🙄

we did. RTFT

Can’t take the hire car to another depot. We need to go back to our rental as we left some things there and need to tidy it!

If it is 40 km away that is only approximately 25 miles

according to Google:
Under extreme wind and dry conditions, a fast-moving wildfire traveling at its maximum continuous rate of about 14 miles per hour can cover 25 miles in roughly 1.5 to 2 hours.