Racing over drought-parched terrain and fanned by winds that reached 80 k.p.h., a series of fierce
Fierce fires ravaged large areas of French Mediterranean coast and Corsica last week. Thousands of soldiers and fires fighters as well as scores of the water trucks and aerial tankers were mobilize as flames destroyed more than a score of homes and blackened more than 23,000 hectares of bush and forest in the Bouches-du-Rhone,Bar and Alpes-Maritimes regions. A fire fighter was killed when an exploding tire caused his truck to roll over.