Firefighters battle blaze near Paris after two suspects arrested

Firefighters kept battling a forest fire south of Paris after police arrested two suspects, including a volunteer firefighter whom prosecutor Diane Ngomsik said admitted to starting one of the blazes. The fire ripped through the Fontainebleau forest, a historic landscape about 60 kilometres southeast of the capital and one of France’s most visited natural and heritage areas.

Ngomsik said the volunteer firefighter, born in 2007 and with no prior criminal record, admitted to “setting fire to twigs with a lighter and gasoline.” A second suspect, also born in 2007 and with no prior criminal record, said he had accidentally started another fire by throwing away a cigarette.

French regional authorities in Seine-et-Marne warned in spring 2026 that low rainfall and marked dryness had made the massif especially vulnerable, and on April 28 they authorized drone surveillance with cameras to monitor fire threats after repeated recent starts. The Interior Ministry also launched a wildfire-prevention campaign on June 4, after large-scale exercise Inferno25 had already underscored how durable the risk had become.

Around 850 firefighters and 200 vehicles were deployed, along with four Canadair aircraft, two Dash planes and three water-bombing helicopters. Rescue commander Jean-Marc Sicard said 187 water drops had been carried out by Monday evening. By then, the main blaze had burned about 1,600 hectares and a second nearby fire another 450 hectares, with the two fires together scorching more than 2,000 hectares in roughly 48 hours and damaging about 5% of the forest.

The fire forced the closure of the A6 highway linking Paris and Lyon and disrupted high-speed rail service toward Gare de Lyon, while about 900 to 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Laurent Nunez said France had already burned through 32,000 hectares this year, more than the total for 2025.