Published September 26, 2017
The Latest on wildfires in southern France and Portugal (all times local):
11:30 a.m.
Almost 1,700 firefighters supported by 17 water-dropping aircraft are tackling wildfires in Portugal, where every summer large areas of woodland are scorched.
The Portuguese Civil Protection Agency says Wednesday that emergency services have brought more than 20 other forest blazes under control as high winds calmed down during the night.
The worst fires were around the town of Macao, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northeast of Lisbon, where deputy mayor Antonio Louro said the damage to livelihoods of local farmers was "catastrophic."
Many people in the area make their living from the local pine and eucalyptus forests, which are bone dry after months without significant rainfall.
More than 70 percent of Portugal is enduring a severe drought.
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9:30 a.m.
The top official of France's Var region on the Mediterranean coast says that 10,000 people were evacuated as blazes hopscotching around the Riviera tore through the town of La Londe-les-Maures.
The prefecture said in a statement on Wednesday that a violent fire took off just before 11 p.m. the night before, and 540 firefighters were sent in to the region.
The statement said that some 10,000 people — about 3,000 of them campers — were evacuated from La Londe and nearby Bormes and La Lavandou.
Four tracker planes and a fire-fighting aircraft were sent in. About 800 hectares of back-country forest had burned by morning.
Fires began raging along the coast on Monday, forcing smaller, scattered evacuations with flames reaching a corner of Saint-Tropez.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/the-latest-1700-firefighters-tackling-portugal-wildfires