French firefighters battle blazes with military cargo planes

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: © France 24 01:38 Issued on: 26/07/2026 - 14:35 Fire crews in France are battling unchecked wildfires that have forced more than 300,000 people to flee were overwhelmed on Sunday as the unpredictable blazes advances. To help stop the flames from spreading, a giant A400M military cargo aircraft has been converted for firefighting in southwest France. Swooping low over arid, fire-threatened woodlands, the plane dropped a long plume or ochre-coloured retardant. FRANCE 24's Charlotte Hughes tells us more about the techniques being used by French firefighters. Keywords for this article