France allows some wildfire evacuees to return as blazes stabilise

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.

A clap of thunder cracked over the town of Lege-Cap-Ferret, and a few raindrops started to fall over the coastal region that has seen France’s worst wildfire since 1949.

Drone footage captured on July 29, 2026 reveals the scale of destruction left by wildfires in southwestern France, showing charred land, uprooted and burnt trees and the remains of destroyed houses near Le Temple.