1,000 evacuated from Fontainebleau fires near Paris; Spanish authorities identify some fire victims

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NOISY-SUR-ÉCOLE, France (AP) — Hundreds of firefighters battled two blazes Tuesday in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris that have consumed nearly 2,000 hectares (about 4,900 acres) and forced the evacuation of 1,000 people, local authorities said.

Bigger fires have been ravaging areas of southern France, but the Fontainebleau fire is exceptionally close to the densely populated region surrounding the French capital.

Water-dumping planes repeatedly dived into the Seine River to scoop up water and douse the fires — the first time such aircraft had ever been used to fight fires in the Paris region, the regional fire chief said.

Smoke blanketed the treetops and hung in the air Tuesday as authorities sought to get the fires under control.

No deaths or injuries have been reported.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the Fontainebleau fires, and two others arrested for fires elsewhere in France, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Tuesday on BFM television. He didn’t provide details.

The heat wave that has scorched France in recent days, the third already this year, is starting to subside. The national weather service expects to end its heat wave red alert warnings starting Wednesday, though thunderstorm warnings are now in place in several regions.

Four days after a fire ravaged a remote expat community in southern Spain, judicial authorities have identified 10 of the 13 fatalities using biological samples.

Most of the deceased, all of whom were adults, are foreign nationals. They include five British citizens — including a woman who died in the hospital — three Belgian nationals, a French woman, and a Spanish national, judicial authorities said in a statement late Monday.

Ten people remain unaccounted for.

The Los Gallardos fire affected some 70 square kilometers (27 square miles) of forest and farmland — an area larger than Manhattan.

Spain is experiencing extreme heat, which, combined with wind and little rainfall, is creating the ideal conditions for small wildfires to grow unchecked.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

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Associated Press writers Teresa Medrano and Suman Naishadham in Madrid and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.