- Hezbollah strikes Israel, says it foiled Israeli incursions
- Jurgen Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Record-breaking Root guides England to 232-2 in reply to Pakistan's 556
- Japan PM dissolves parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
Fire and destruction at Europe's biggest sand dune
In a usual July on Europe's biggest sand dune, holidaymakers clamber to its peak to admire the panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean beyond. This year, its heights are deserted, shrouded in smoke, with fire service planes buzzing overhead.
The Dune de Pilat is a famous attraction on France's west coast, with its sands rising abruptly out of thick pine forests that shade bustling camp sites and caravan parks in the summer months.
This year, the forests are ablaze, sending up thick clouds of smoke that blot out the sun as they drift over the ocean or towards the city of Bordeaux, 60 kilometres (36 miles) to the north east.
Around 6,500 hectares of forest have burned so far near the dune -- an area 12 km long and 7.0 km wide -- with another 12,800 hectares lost to a separate and bigger fire further inland to the east.
"We were faced with a wall of fire that was 40-50 metres high. It was a tinderbox," fire service spokesman Matthieu Jomain told AFP on Tuesday from a blackened area next to the dune.
"There were sparks being carried several hundred metres by the wind," he added.
Around 2,000 firefighters are battling round the clock to bring the infernos under control, backed by helicopters and Canadair fire planes which swoop down into the ocean to fill their tanks.
Around 20,000 people have been evacuated near the dune, including residents in the tourist town of La Teste-de-Buch where the temperature hovered around 40 Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
"The firemen rang the doorbell to tell us we had to evacuate right away and then the police arrived five minutes later and told us the same thing," a pensioner told AFP as he left with his partner and pets in a car.
- 'Amazing' firefighters -
At least five campsites have been destroyed by the flames, including one that featured in a popular recent series of French comedy films called "Camping".
"I had a message from a fireman saying 'we're sorry'," the director of the gutted "Camping de la Dune" site, Franck Couderc, told BFM television.
"They shouldn't be sorry. It's amazing what they did," he said.
The local zoo has begun evacuating its animals which were in danger of inhaling the smoke, with 363 out of 850 already sent in a special convoy to a facility near Bordeaux.
Around a dozen animals succumbed to the stress and heat, however, the national environment ministry said.
The whole area around the Dune de Pilat lives off tourists in the summer months who are drawn to the nearby Bay of Arcachon, surfing beaches to the south, or the upmarket Cap Ferret area with its five-star hotels.
"It's heartbreaking," said Patrick Davet, the mayor of La Teste-de-Buch.
burs-adp/jh/cdw
M.A.Colin--AMWN