France, July 27 -- Firefighters have been battling to hold the blazes back from Bordeaux, which lies at the heart of the world-famous wine-growing region, with authorities evacuating thousands of people from villages close to the city.

"We're very vigilant," Bordeaux mayor Thomas Cazenave said, adding that there were no current plans to move the city's 270,000 residents.

"The fire is further south," he told reporters at a shelter for people displaced by the wildfires.

"It is still on the edge of the metropolitan area, but it is not advancing on the western side of the metropolis," he said. A firefighter pulls a hose on the edge of a burning area in Blagon, west of Bordeaux, on July 26, 2026 as a wildfire has been ravaging the forest no...