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French firefighters prevent new wild fire after microlight crash

Firefighters managed to prevent new forest fires in south-west France when a microlight crashed, killing two people, on Sunday morning. The accident happened less than 15 kilometres from Lacanau where France’s biggest wild fires of the year were brought under control on Friday.

Reuters/Ulrich Chofflet
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The microlight crashed at 8.30 am shortly after taking off from a private airfield near the village of Saint-Hélène in the Gironde, the department of which Bordeaux is the main city, regional paper Sud-Ouest reports.

Firefighters rushed to the scene and prevented a fire which had started from spreading.

About 200 firefighters with 70 fire engines remained in the Lacanau area over the weekend in case the forest fire that they managed to control on Friday took off again.

With temperatures approaching 40°C on Saturday afternoon and staying high overnight they feared that the heat could combine with winds changing direction to set the area ablaze again.

Police believe that the most likely cause of the fire, that raged at about 10 kilometres from beaches that are popular with surfers, was a cigarette end discarded by a motorist.

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