An Irish family are among over 1,500 people evacuated from a French campsite due to wildfires.
Several wildfires broke out along the Mediterranean coast of France as a result of the severe heatwave in mainland Europe, which saw temperatures exceed 40C in some countries and led to over 2,000 deaths.
The heatwave, coupled with strong winds and dry timber, caused several huge wildfires to break out — with over 1,500 people being evacuated from a campsite near Perpignan Airport.
An Irish family was among those evacuated, with Michael Cleary sharing dramatic footage from the campsite and the ensuing wildfires. He and his family had just arrived the previous day, but were evacuated as their cabin burned down.
‘We arrived in France yesterday to stay at Le Brasilia in Canet-et-Roussillon,’ Mr Cleary wrote on Twitter (X). ‘We were evacuated from our campsite to the beach beside the camp due to the fires.
‘Our cabin was burnt down along with 150 other homes on the site. All our belongings have gone with the fires.’
In a later post, Mr Cleary said that he and his family were returning to Ireland and had heard explosions believed to be from gas canisters, which worsened the fires.
‘We’re back at the airport; we arrived yesterday morning in Carcassonne, returning home,’ he wrote. ‘Kids devastated, but we’re ok.
‘Scary hearing all the explosions (presumably gas cylinders) caused by the fire. The winds yesterday were very significant and really hampered the firefighters.’
— Michael Cleary (@MichaelCleary14) July 3, 2026
France’s interior minister, Laurent Nunez, said that two of the fires burned roughly 1,210 hectares on Thursday alone after breaking out on the western edge of the city of Marseille.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrived in the city to hold a crisis meeting on both the heatwave and the wildfires.
