In the worst-hit Gard region, where France’s highest-ever temperature was registered on Friday at 45.9 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit), scores of overnight fires burned some 550 hectares (about 1,360 acres) of land and destroyed several houses and vehicles.
“We came very close to a disaster,” Didier Lauga, prefect of the Gard, told reporters. “There are still firefighters in place in case fires break out again.”
