Massive Fontainebleau forest fire near Paris forces evacuations, arrests two suspected arsonists

Fire crews battled two blazes in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris on Tuesday after flames spread across nearly 2,000 hectares and forced about 1,000 people from nearby villages. Police arrested two people on suspicion of arson, including an 18-year-old with soot-covered hands and a lighter. The Paris region is in its third heatwave since May.

The fire began on Sunday, July 12, in a wooded area about 60 kilometers southeast of Paris that is both a UNESCO biosphere reserve and a former royal hunting estate. The blaze burned unusually close to the densely populated capital region and was burning with exceptional intensity, with specialized aircraft brought in to reinforce ground crews.

By Tuesday, firefighters had deployed about 400 to 850 personnel at different stages of the response, along with four Canadair water-bombing planes, two Dash aircraft, helicopters and an observation plane. The use of water-dumping planes in the Paris region was unprecedented. Fire crews worked around villages including Vaudoué and Noisy-sur-École.

Trains at or leaving Paris’s Gare de Lyon were delayed by up to six hours on Sunday evening, while the A6 highway was disrupted as smoke and emergency traffic moved through the area. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez put forest fires at 17,000 hectares in France this year and projected they would likely reach 25,000 hectares once totals were finalized, about twice the area burned over the same period in 2025.

In Spain, authorities identified nine of the 13 people killed in one of the country’s deadliest wildfires on record, while forensic teams continued DNA work on three others. The dead included five British citizens, three Belgian nationals, a French woman and a Spanish national, and Andalusia’s regional government lowered its wildfire alert to the pre-emergency phase after the blaze stabilized and evacuation orders were lifted.