RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Ege-Cap Ferret, France\u00a0\u2014 French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to go back to their homes in southwest France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris. The authorized returns announced Thursday covered nine localities that had been evacuated. In all, more than 220,000 people were forced to flee their homes since last week. Higher humidity, cooler temperatures and some drizzle raised hopes that Thursday could be a decisive step on the way to vanquishing the fire. The regional prefecture said returning evacuees must keep their phones on for evacuation alerts and should be packed and ready in case they need to leave again. Nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 people initially ordered to evacuate have now been allowed to go home. Some 60,000 people who had been evacuated from three suburbs of the city of Bordeaux, to the east, were given the go-ahead to return on Tuesday.Authorities also said a highway that has been closed since the weekend would reopen Thursday afternoon, clearing a major artery for road traffic with Spain and vacationers as France enters its peak August holiday period.But CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio says nearly 80,000 people remain displaced from their homes across all of southern France, and the fire is not out. George and Amal Clooney among evacueesOscar-winning actor George Clooney, his wife Amal Clooney, and their two children were among those forced to flee their home in Brignoles, the actor said in a letter to the town\u0027s mayor, shared to CBS News by publicist Guido Gotz.In a letter to Didier Bremond, the Hollywood star said: "At this point we have no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment" and that the family wanted "to emphasize 2 things.""[F]irst, we hope you and the people of our city are safe and second that Amal and I are committed to making sure that whatever happens to our village, we are part of this community and we\u0027ll be part of making it whole. We love Brignoles and our friends who live there," he wrote.Brignoles is about 55 miles east of Marseille.Clooney, whose family was awarded French citizenship in December 2025, told "CBS Sunday Morning" in November 2025 that the family lives on a 250-acre farm because they wanted to give their children "something of a normal existence."Volunteers join the wildfire battleLocal officials reported a "rather calm" night, with the fire not growing beyond the roughly 162 square miles already affected. Fire crews remained at "total mobilization," with 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft.But the scale of the disaster has demanded even more help on the ground, and CBS News\u0027 Inocencio spent time Wednesday with residents who have stepped up to try and tackle every little fire, leaving firefighters to battle the biggest blazes.\u00a0Nils Seval is a surf instructor, but this week he\u0027s been spraying down flareups that emerge from blazes still smoldering underground even in areas where big flames have been extinguished.\u00a0"The ground is smoking, because fires go everywhere," he told CBS News. "Underground, sometimes like one meter [three feet] underground."Seval and his fellow volunteers have been at it since last week, and they haven\u0027t given up yet.He said it was simply too much for the fire crews to tackle on their own, and he admits it has taken a toll, leaving him and other volunteers exhausted."We take some short pause, like three hours, four hours," he said, "but it\u0027s okay. It\u0027s for all the village, all the community." Weather conditions offer hope for relief The hope on Thursday was that more help was coming, from nature itself.Sophie Brocas, the prefect for the Gironde region, expressed some optimism that lower temperatures could help. "If that\u0027s confirmed, we could foresee a return to a more normal life for residents, but also for businesses that need to work," she told reporters late Wednesday. Humidity reached 80% overnight but was expected to drop by midday, authorities said. Some rainfall was expected along the coast that "could reach the fire zone," Gironde officials said in a morning note. Temperatures that peaked around 104 Fahrenheit a day earlier were set to drop Thursday, topping around 80 degrees along the coast. An "orange" heat wave alert \u2014 the second-highest level after "red" \u2014 was lifted shortly before dawn.Wildfires across EuropeThe fires in France\u0027s tourism-heavy Bordeaux region, home to famed vineyards and stunning forests, are among the blazes that have swept across pockets of Europe in recent weeks, including Spain, Greece and even the U.K. On Thursday, firefighters were tackling multiple forest fires in four of Turkey\u0027s western provinces, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Blazes in touristic Mugla and Antalya and elsewhere raged overnight as hot weather and strong winds gripped the region. Residents were evacuated as teams with firefighting planes and helicopters battled the fires. A day earlier, authorities in neighboring Greece said three firefighters died on the island of Crete as the country\u0027s wildfire emergency stretched from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.Fire crews were battling a blaze on heathland in England\u0027s southern Suffolk County on Thursday \u2014 one of many U.K. regions currently parched by drought. CBS News\u0027 partner network BBC News said authorities had declared a major incident "due to the size and complexity" of the wildfire, with an area along Suffolk\u0027s coast equal to about 14 soccer fields ablaze, forcing residents to evacuate from about 200 mobile homes.There were no reports of structural damage or injuries, and the BBC...
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