Fleeing a wall of flames: Tourists describe France wildfires escape

Rebecca Papin, a French-American ing her holiday home in the commune of Biscarrosse, near to the Cap Ferret peninsula, saw a large plume of smoke in the distance on Thursday.

And BBC South's Joanna Kent, who was on holiday in the Cap Ferret peninsula earlier this week, recalled seeing her campsite deserted after two van loads of police told tourists they had 30 minutes to get out.

Since experiencing "panic" before a "well organised" operation to clear out the entire peninsula, he said he received four different evacuation alerts from the authorities - the most recent at 17:00 on Friday - after "we moved away from one fire to only get put into the crosshairs of another".