A human-made forest is at the centre of France's raging wildfires
Devastating wildfires in France are being exacerbated by the region's history of industrial forest management, which replaced natural wetlands with pine plantations. While climate change is the primary driver, experts note that the human-altered landscape has significantly increased fire vulnerability.
Why it matters
This analysis underscores how historical land-use decisions and industrial forestry can create environmental risks that are amplified by modern climate change.
Photos and videos trickled in, mostly from firefighters already hard at work.
The 20-year-old didn't get to see the scale of the devastation until she was granted permission to visit the community on Sunday. When she arrived, she saw only the cinder walls of her mother's house were left.
"The town we used to know is gone," Corsaint told CBC on Tuesday.
"You can’t even get your bearings anymore; the houses we used to see when driving by — there’s nothing left. It’s all ash."
Corsaint and her family are among the more than 250,000 people evacuated from their homes in France as fires spread at an unprecedented rate near Bordeaux . In Spain, more than 116,000 people have had to leave their communities as fires continue to burn there, too.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in