Drones and bulldozers: how the army is helping battle the blaze in France's southwest

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: How the french army is helping battle the blaze © France 24 01:57 Issued on: 29/07/2026 - 15:42 Some 1,500 French soldiers have been deployed to help combat the Gironde fire. A team of France Television reporters was granted permission to embed with some of them to see how they help support local firefighters. From widening forest trails to helping identify hotspots, potential looters or civilians trapped by the flames, they are proving useful support to firefighters. Keywords for this article