Video: A French Village Becomes a Ghost Town After the Wildfires

Jean-Charles Meistertzheim is one of the last people left in this idyllic French town, and he has one job. A wildfire has been burning here for more than a week, and when his neighbors fled, he came back to care for the animals they couldn’t take with them. This village, near Bordeaux, was one of the first to be evacuated, as the fire drove more than 200,000 people from their homes. For days, he’s fed them all, riding around the same 12-mile loop every morning. But he’s not completely alone here. Just down the road, a vacation that was supposed to end days ago is still ongoing. Corinne and Stéphane came to Claouey on holiday, as they do every summer. They went to bed Thursday night, and by Friday morning the town was empty. By the time they understood what was happening, the police had already come and gone. More than a week later, they’re still waiting. What’s unsettling them most, though, isn’t just the wildfire. It’s the feeling that it won’t be the last. For now, they’ll have to ride out the rest of this vacation on their own.