'A very scary experience': Irish family fleeing French camping site blaze as European wildfires rage

Hundreds of firefighters are battling blazes that have devastated over 20,000 hectares of land across France, Portugal, Spain, Greece and other countries.(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

An Irish woman has shared how she tried to "stay calm for the children"  as her family had to escape a blaze at a campsite in France, as wildfires have forced thousands to evacuate their homes across southern Europe.

Hundreds of firefighters are battling blazes that have devastated over 20,000 hectares of land across France, Portugal, Spain, Greece and other countries.

Orla Darcy said that at first they thought the fires were further away and there had not been any alarms, but their party of 17, eight adults and nine children, grabbed their passports and made their way to the reception area at the campsite, where they were told to go to a football pitch, which was the main evacuation point.

“We went to the football pitch, and when we arrived there we decided that we didn't want to stay there. It was an enclosed football pitch, and there were hundreds of people coming at this stage, and the smoke seemed to be coming very quickly now at this point.

“We made the decision ourselves to evacuate to the beach. We know the campsite quite well because we've been going there since 2016, so we had a fair idea of where we were going.

“So we made the decision to kind of get onto the beach as we kind of felt that that's probably the safest place to be at that stage.” 

Everything happened very quickly, she told RTÉ radio’s

Morning Ireland

. The time from first seeing smoke to standing on the beach had been 10 minutes.

“It was a very scary experience. Obviously you're trying to stay calm for the children and reassure them that perhaps it's not our campsite, perhaps it's further away than we think it is, perhaps it's not as bad as it seems. So you're trying to reassure them, and there were two very young children in our group as well.

“So you're trying to keep your composure for them and make sure that they're okay. And unfortunately nobody had time to bring water or suncream or any kind of protection from the sun so we were concerned about that as well.” 

"We continued to make our way along the beach walking away from the direction of the smoke and the fire, and I mean at this point there are hundreds of people on the beach, and we're still waiting for someone to come and tell us what to do next, because nobody was really sure what was at the end of the beach."

Ms Darcy said that they had lost everything they had left behind when they fled.

“Every item of clothing and all the children's suitcases, you know the basic things that you bring on holidays with you, before you go away...you're stocking up on holiday clothes, children's new runners, kindles, things like that.”