France wildfires reveal hundreds of WW2 shells in village

A wildfire near Bordeaux, France, exposed a cache of roughly 400 World War II-era shells and munitions in the village of Le Porge, prompting days of bomb disposal operations before residents could return home. Local officials said blasts heard during the fire, initially mistaken for exploding gas cylinders, may have been these old shells detonating from the heat; the mayor said the buried ammunition depots were previously unknown to authorities. More than 180 homes in the area were destroyed by the blaze, and some areas, including a stretch of coast, a campsite, and the village of La Jenny, remained off-limits afterward. The wildfire, one of the largest in the Gironde region in decades, burned more than 40,000 hectares over about ten days before being brought under control, part of a wider wave of fires across France and Spain this summer.