RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 2 sourcesSkies filled with smoke and the smell of fumes fill the city of Bordeaux as residents struggle to sleep and breathe amid raging wildfires
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“The smell is horrible, you can’t breathe,” says Ira Szmuk, a resident living in the centre of the city of Bordeaux as raging wildfires creep closer by the hour.
“In the afternoon and evening, the winds bring all the smoke into town so we can’t go out. We do everything we need to do in the morning and then we lock ourselves in the house.”
On Sunday, the city’s mayor Thomas Cazenave warned that the blazes were now only 15km (9 miles) away from the entry points to the main city, after the surrounding suburbs were evacuated on Saturday.
Bordeaux City Council officials told Sky News that they were considering plans to evacuate the whole area, which is the sixth-largest city in France .
For Ira, her husband and their family, it feels like the fires are already here. Her children, aged 10, 8 and 4, have already seen their summer camp cancelled in light of the incidents. Her elderly parents, aged 76 and 70, are housebound as the air quality has deteriorated so severely.
“Even though the worst of the fire is 40 minutes away, it’s been hard because people that live only 15 minutes away from us have already been evacuated,” she tells The Independent.
She says that as winds worsen in the evening, the morning’s clear skies swiftly turn to dark grey and filled with smoke.
“It’s a really unpleasant feeling. It’s extreme. Within an hour the whole sky is covered,” she says.
“It’s like if you burned a lot of paper at once. If you’re out, your hair and clothing absorbs all of it. I've been outside now for an hour and I smell like I've been inside a barbecue.”
Working in the tourist industry, Ira says she has had a lot of “scared messages” from tourists who are worried about where to go and what to do if the wildfires don’t slow down. As residents wait on official guidance, she says she feels “confused” herself as to what to do next.
“Every day we hope it will get better and every day it gets worse,” she says. “We’re wondering whether we should leave before we’re asked to evacuate.”
While Ira and her family are lucky to have air conditioning in their home, she has friends with small children who don’t.
“All my friends that don’t have it say it’s quite horrible inside the house because the smell is so strong. It really feels like you’re in the fire. At night they say that it’s very hard to breathe, you start coughing.”
She says that residents have been advised to avoid public transport and airports in evacuated areas are filled with smoke but remain opened as people are desperate to leave.
It has also had an impact on local businesses who rely on the peak season to get them through the year.
“People aren’t speaking about it yet because we’re still in a life-threatening situation but for many people their whole year’s revenue depends on these months. The year is over for us the moment you take summer away.”
After Éléonore Caroit, the minister for international partnerships, initially advised tourists not to cancel their travel plans on Saturday, French state authorities advised visitors to postpone their trip for the next 24 to 48 hours on Sunday.
“We’re probably still not at the point where they should tell us to evacuate,” says Ira. “But I do think that they should tell people that have little kids or elderly people or people with any health issues to evacuate.”
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