BBC presenter Joanna Kent has revealed she was caught up in the wildfires raging in south west France and had just 30 minutes to evacuate the area.
Joanne, who works as a host on BBC South Today, was in the Cap Ferret Peninsula but was forced to leave amid the blaze which has destroyed homes.
She was holidaying with her family in the destination when the fires broke out and appeared on BBC Breakfast on Saturday to detail her experience.
Speaking to host Naga Munchetty, she said: ‘We’re well away from it now, we’ve relocated to the Loire Valley and there’s nothing going on here but the Cap Ferret Peninsula is somewhere we’ve been to before and there is a lot of pine forest there, it’s been exceptionally dry and there is a known risk of these forest fires.’
Joanna explained that she first noticed the fires on Wednesday after spotting a ‘huge plume of smoke rising up into the sky’ and ash reigning down.
BBC presenter Joanna Kent has revealed she was caught up in the wildfires raging in south west France and had just 30 minutes to evacuate the area
She said: ‘We went down to the local beach that night, and you could just see this wall of orange flame and an apocalyptic scene flaring up with every gust of the wind.’
‘My 10-year-old was pretty scared. He packed a bag that night and was worried about being evacuated in the middle of the night.’
Revealing they had a short window to pack up when the evacuation call came, Joanna said: ‘Luckily for us, it happened sort of just before lunchtime the following day. So it was a bit of a better time to get that sort of 30 minutes to pack your bags and go.’
Asked what local people were saying about the blaze, Joanna replied: ‘Well, I think people were just, I think the forest fire is a known risk, but I don’t think anything like this has happened in exactly that area.
‘Back in 2022, there was a pretty devastating fire… a couple of campsites were destroyed then.
‘So, I mean, on the atmosphere on the campsite, most people were pretty calm, but we did see some people looking quite panicked. They were sprinting back to their tents and caravans, trying to get things packed up.
Joanne, who works as a host on BBC South Today, was in the Cap Ferret Peninsula but was forced to leave amid the blaze which has destroyed homes
‘We, luckily, we were in accommodation there, so we didn’t have to sort of be packing up a load of camping gear. We just chucked stuff in bags.’
Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo revealed that she and husband James Watt also fled Cap Ferret by boat just hours before it was hit by wildfires.
More than 40,000 people have fled from a holiday spot in France after an ‘apocalyptic’ wildfire that broke out on Tuesday.
Former Made In Chelsea star Georgia, 31, had been holidaying with James and his children in the paradise location when the ‘distressing’ evacuations took place.
Taking to her Instagram Stories on Saturday, the reality star explained the situation and revealed they had slept overnight in the airport out of fear.
She said: ‘Hello everyone I’ve been a little bit quiet on here and I just wanted to explain. I’m just so praying that everyone is okay but to cut a long story short we were on holiday in Cap Ferret.
‘And whenever I’ve got the children with me I don’t post about where we are and I post out of time.
Georgia Toffolo has revealed that she and husband James Watt fled Cap Ferret by boat just hours before it was hit by wildfires
Former Made In Chelsea star Georgia, 31, had been holidaying with James and his children in the paradise location when the ‘distressing’ evacuations took place
‘I couldn’t say but we were just watching the news and just so you can understand so we were on holiday there for a week and we were at lunch with friends on Thursday.
‘We obviously knew about the fire but at that point it was quite far away and our friends were like, “God, it’s really getting bad”, and they live there so they were a bit more plugged in than us.
‘And anyway at that point everyone was like everything’s okay but the problem is with these wildfires that when the wind changes direction the situation changes really quickly.’
Georgia continued: ‘So we were meant to be leaving on Friday anyway to fly up here, we were dropping the kids and we’re in Iceland now.
‘But James just said to me on Thursday, we had four children with us, he was just like I don’t like it and we could smell stuff and there was little bits of ash falling.
‘We got everyone packed up and we left by boat because the road was closed on Thursday and stayed at the airport on Thursday night and our flights were already booked early on Friday morning.’
She added: ‘It was really quite distressing to see because it just increased and increased.
‘We were very lucky we left a few hours before the island peninsula of Cap Ferret did a big evacuation in the early hours of that morning.
More than 40,000 people have fled from a millionaire’s holiday spot in France after an ‘apocalyptic’ wildfire that broke out on Tuesday
Luxury homes are erupting in flames as desperate tourists flee down a single road off the ‘French Hamptons’ peninsula amid gigantic wildfires
Wildfires advance near Le Proge region in western France, on Thursday this week
‘It’s so awful, so many firefighters have been injured, it’s just a really awful situation. It was just even when we were sat at lunch, it was growing in velocity.’
The reality star finished the clip by saying that she hopes everyone is OK and that the authorities are handling the situation very well.
Mass evacuations have been taking place throughout Friday – including by boat – from Cap Ferret in south-west France, where wildfires have burnt through thousands of hectares of forest and destroyed luxury villas.
The fires, which began on Tuesday in Saumos, Gironde, have burned for days, with 10,000 hectares (almost 25,000 acres) of land being consumed by the flames.
A 90-minute drive from Bordeaux, the string of fishing villages is a popular destination for Paris’s elite, often compared to the Hamptons in America.
In Spain, the government declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region, where more than 10,000 people have been evacuated in recent days.
Emergency services said alert messages had been sent to people in Aldea del Fresno, a town west of Madrid, ordering them to leave.
It is the first time such a measure has been taken due to a wildfire.
The last time Spain declared the same level of emergency alert was during a massive nationwide power blackout last year.
Eighteen firefighting units with specialist troops were working to contain the blaze near the city of Toledo, close to another wildfire that forced the evacuation of several villages on Wednesday.
In south-west France, distressed tourists are anxiously fleeing the beloved getaway either on boats or by the only road linking the area with the mainland.
In south-west France, authorities sent boats to help the evacuation of around 63,000 people, many of them tourists, as two major, separate fires threatened homes and campsites.
Around 40,000 have been forced to flee from the Cap Ferret peninsula – which has the Atlantic on one side and the Bay of Arcachon on the other – while 23,000 were evacuated from Biscarrosse, 25 miles to the south.
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