12,000 evacuated to escape 'apocalyptic' wildfire in the French Riviera

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A wildfire on France's Mediterranean coast.
(Image credit: MARION LEFLOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

Summer wildfires have forced the evacuation of about 12,000 residents and vacationers in southern France this week as officials scramble to arrange temporary housing across the Côte d’Azur region. More than 4,000 firefighters have mobilized to fight the "apocalyptic" flames, which are visible from many beachside resorts.

"The sky was all red," one vacationing evacuee told France's Le Monde. "It was a huge blaze with enormous flames spreading everywhere."

Wildfires are also burning in nearby Corsica, Portugal, Italy, and Albania.

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Bonnie Kristian
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.