Hundreds of firefighters battling wildfire in southern France

Paris [France], July 19: Nearly 1,000 firefighters and helicopters battled a wildfire about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of France's second-largest city Marseille on Friday, but officials said lower temperatures and increased humidity had improved the situation.
The 240-hectare (593 acres) wildfire flared up a week after a separate conflagration reached the northwestern outskirts of Marseille, forcing people to evacuate or into lockdown and temporarily shuttering the area's airport.
Pierre Bepoix, the colonel of rescue operations and deputy director for the area's firefighters, said 150 people had been evacuated, but firefighters had managed to save 150 homes and portions of the area's forests.
"It was a fire that swept through relatively dense vegetation ... which made our work particularly complicated," Bepoix told Reuters. "Obviously, priority was given to the preservation and protection of these homes and the lives that could be in these buildings.
Source: Emirates News Agency