France wildfires: Displaced residents find refuge in Bordeaux amid 'heartbreaking' scenes

Pascale, a septuagenarian, sat on her camp bed at Bordeaux's exhibition center, trying to pass the time with a book. "I'm starting to get a bit tired of it all..." she said. She had been forced to leave her home three days prior as a wildfire raged north of the Arcachon basin.

"We were evacuated Thursday afternoon, and we've been waiting since," Pascale explained, stroking her dog, Pepper. Like thousands of other Gironde residents whose towns were evacuated, she found refuge at the Bordeaux exhibition center. The city's mayor and metropolitan authorities mobilized the vast halls to accommodate the displaced.

Karine and her 18-year-old son Matteo arrived late Friday night. "We live in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles. The alert on our phones..." Karine began, her sentence trailing off as she gestured around the crowded hall. Around 5,000 to 6,000 people were at the center by Sunday afternoon, a testament to the scale of the evacuations affecting 23 communes and 220,000 people since Wednesday. The stress of not knowing when they can return home weighs heavily on the evacuees.

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On a été évacué jeudi après-midi, et depuis, on attend