Fire bomber planes battle Fontainebleau forest blaze near Paris

France scrambled two firefighting planes to the Paris region on Sunday after what officials called a fire of "exceptional scale" broke out in the Fontainebleau forest, roughly sixty kilometers southeast of the capital. The Guardian reports the blaze began late in the afternoon in the former royal hunting preserve, now dotted with quiet villages, and raced across more than eight hundred hectares. Officials say it was still spreading early Monday, forcing villages to evacuate, partially closing the A6, the country's main north-south highway, and disrupting high-speed rail during a heatwave-stricken summer travel weekend.

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