Livorno: France's fires under control

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on Saturday that the wildfires that have ravaged the country in recent days are now under control, more than a week after the largest forest fire the nation has seen since 1949 broke out.

In an interview with the French weekly newspaper La Tribune Dimanche, Lecornu said, “Overall, the fires are now under control in our country.”

France has been battling forest fires for weeks following a series of deadly heatwaves that have dried up riverbeds and vegetation, extreme weather phenomena that scientists have linked to climate change caused by human activity.

The largest fire was recorded about a week ago in the Gironde region near Bordeaux, where it consumed approximately 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of pine forests along the Atlantic coast—an area larger than the US city of Detroit.

The blaze also destroyed around 240 homes.