MARSEILLE, France (news agencies) — A wildfire spurred by hot summer winds reached France’s second-largest city Tuesday, grounding all flights to and from Marseille, injuring at least nine people and forcing many residents to evacuate or barricade themselves indoors as smoke choked the Mediterranean air.
A big city hospital switched to generator power, train traffic was halted in most of the surrounding area, and some roads were closed and others tangled with logjams.
More than 1,000 firefighters were deployed to tackle the fire, which broke out near the town of Les Pennes-Mirabeau before racing toward Marseille. Some 720 hectares (acres) were hit by the blaze, the prefecture said.
Nine firefighters were injured, according to the prefecture, or local administration. No dead have been reported.
The prefecture said in a statement Tuesday evening that ’’the situation is under control,″ though the fire has not yet been extinguished. It described the fire as ’’particularly virulent.″
It came on a cloudless, windy day after a lengthy heat wave around Europe left the area parched and at heightened risk for wildfires. Several have broken out in southern France in recent days.
Light gray smoke gave the sky over Marseille’s old port a dusty aspect as water-dropping planes tried to extinguish the fire in the outskirts of the city, which has some 900,000 inhabitants.
Hundreds of homes were evacuated. The prefecture urged people in the affected areas to stay indoors and off the roads. With the fire approaching Marseille, the prefecture also advised residents in the north of the city to keep windows closed to prevent toxic smoke from entering their homes.
One distressed family watched the smoke over their neighborhood in the hills above the port city and showed news agencies how the roof of their neighbor’s house had been damaged in the fire as they worried about their own.
Marseille airport announced that the runway had been closed at around midday. The prefecture said train traffic was halted, notably after a fire neared the tracks in L’Estaque, a picturesque neighborhood of Marseille.
As a safety measure, the city’s Hospital Nord switched to generators “due to micro power cuts.”
“The aim is to secure the imaging sector. We are not worried as we have a high level of autonomy,” the University Hospitals of Marseille said, adding that because of the disrupted traffic it asked workers to remain at their posts until the next teams starts its shift.
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Sam Petrequin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.
