The situation in Bordeaux right now feels close to apocalyptic. I left yesterday. Two hundred thousand people are evacuated, hundreds of homes destroyed, and the fire about 10 miles from the edge of the city.
I also left yesterday. I thought the mood was still surprisingly calm, considering that there was already enough smoke in the city to make it look like a foggy winter day and smell heavily of campfire.
Now I am wondering if my return flight from Bordeaux in a few days will actually happen. Currently the airport is still operating, although the surrounding area has been evacuated. It really looks apocalyptic there, though:
It impacted the north of Bordeaux too. from Thursday to saturday, a lot of small fields/forest in Charente/Charente maritime started to catch fire because of the embers. The smoke was also so dense it completly modified the local climate and fucked up the wind prevision (i know because i was suppose to wingfoil all afternoon saturday and we had no wind until like 18-19), also dropping the temperature 2-3C (150km away).
These train workers in northern Ontario had an intense view of a wildfire up close. I would have freaked out. They're acting like there's a cute animal on tracks.
This video is so insane. They're in a combustion engine. I can not fathom why they survived let alone managed to drive out of this. Trains are not build for fire resistance.
There's a good chance that conflagrations during WWII generated such clouds. There are well established incidents of such in Germany (and Japan) (ref: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/91/9/2010bam... , Hamburg, Dresden, etc) but nothing for certain in France. The British attacks on Royan which destroyed 85% of it with high explosive and napalam would be the most likely site.
Just had the same here in Washington state for the Little Giant fire. Great image in the article. We had another fire cloud behind Rainier the other day, and saw it from the Rount Mainier farm - it really looked like the volcano was smoking up and ready to top-off. <clench>
If you the are in the area and hesitating to evacuate, or if you want to realize what terrible phenomenon you are you facing. Watch this great documentary about the tragedy that unfolded in Portugal a few years ago. Leave now.
For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to drain and reclaim what was considered an inhospitable wetland, where shepherds famously walked around on stilts. Pine resin and needle litter makes it exceptionally flammable, and being an uninterrupted monoculture on flat land it lacks natural barriers to stop the fire from advancing.
I will be surprised if the climate crisis doesn’t eventually escalate to the point where basically everyone agrees that geoengineering of some kind is worth the risk.
Pedantic cloud enjoyer here, the article should name this a pyrocumulus not pyrocumulonimbus - the nimbus part means 'rain-bearing' in meteorology, fire clouds don't rain.
Le Monde, very reputed French newspaper (NYtimes equivalent for France perhaps) says that it’s not the first time this cloud is seen in France [1]: (translation mine)
> “What is happening right now is extremely, extremely unusual. Seeing a cloud this massive and reaching such an altitude above a wildfire is exceptionally rare,” the researcher explains.
“During the Pedrógão fire [which claimed around 60 lives in Portugal in 2017], there were two episodes of fire-induced thunderstorms. Here, we are already at eight or ten, and the forecast is not encouraging at all.”
Although unprecedented in both intensity and frequency, the phenomenon has been observed in France before, according to the expert: during the Fontainebleau wildfire (Seine-et-Marne) in July, the Ribaute fire (Aude) in 2025, and the Générac fire (Gard) in 2019.
It seems that this cloud and the attached storms have been seen before, even recently, in France, but this one is one of a kind for intensity, by far.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 36.7 ms ] threadNow I am wondering if my return flight from Bordeaux in a few days will actually happen. Currently the airport is still operating, although the surrounding area has been evacuated. It really looks apocalyptic there, though:
https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2026/07/aeroport-bordeaux-fum...
Good luck, and stay safe.
see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/train-cab-wildfir...
[edit] other video links in case the first link isn't viewable outside Canada.
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwc16INKNq0 or https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qAerRqQQHAM
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/little...
"Witness to Disaster | National Geographic" - https://youtu.be/clTeqIpGBeU
https://youtu.be/clTeqIpGBeU?t=1734
Unfortunately for us, the Earth has no preferences and doesn't run on our schedule.
https://xn--incendiosespaa-2nb.es/ (in Spanish)
It is disheartening to see how everything is basically in red.
Just a few more GPUs ought to fix it.
No one here is really discussing “climate change”.
Is it denial, or just that we’ve accepted the obvious?
Thank you for your service everyone, these are real life heroes like the ones you see on Star Wars movies but real.
> “What is happening right now is extremely, extremely unusual. Seeing a cloud this massive and reaching such an altitude above a wildfire is exceptionally rare,” the researcher explains.
“During the Pedrógão fire [which claimed around 60 lives in Portugal in 2017], there were two episodes of fire-induced thunderstorms. Here, we are already at eight or ten, and the forecast is not encouraging at all.”
Although unprecedented in both intensity and frequency, the phenomenon has been observed in France before, according to the expert: during the Fontainebleau wildfire (Seine-et-Marne) in July, the Ribaute fire (Aude) in 2025, and the Générac fire (Gard) in 2019.
It seems that this cloud and the attached storms have been seen before, even recently, in France, but this one is one of a kind for intensity, by far.
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2026/07/27/le-pyrocum...