Firefighters battle the last hot spots of a monster wildfire in France's southwest

LANTON, France -- With his watering can and bucket, Jean-François Pauner meanders from one small fire to the next along a forest floor, dousing small flareups of wildfires that have swept through a swath of southwestern France.“This is the first fire I'm experiencing real-time, and I can tell you it’s vicious," said Pauner, 64. “It’s underground, it comes out at any moment, and no matter how much we try to extinguish it, re-extinguish it, re-extinguish it, it keeps restarting all the time.”“It’s like a steamroller that’s constantly, constantly rolling,” said Pauner, wearing shorts, boots and sunglasses on a string around his neck on a road through cultivated pine trees, as the ground smoldered in pockets.Pauner, who has a residence in nearby Lanton, is among the untold numbers of volunteers who have mobilized to support firefighters battling the biggest wildfires in years in France. “I’m protecting my forest, and my home,” he said, after pouring out his watering can into a smoking ditch as if watering a garden, then huffing in the heat on Thursday.The wildfires blazing through cultivated forests on an Atlantic coast also known for towering sand dunes and tourist resorts have devast...