Pawleys

My family and I are planning a vacation in Southwest France next summer. We are considering renting a house in the lot valley. I have read a lot about forest fires in France; but, don’t know if this area has been impacted as well.

Michael

I tried to give a reference to a le Monde article that includes a map of forest fire potential or occurrence in 2022 but that freezes up my Fodors connection. So Google "forest fires in France in 2022" and the first reference to come up will be that le Monde article.

BritishCaicos

It’s inpossible to predict - take a look at google earth - pan out to look at the whole of the coast of SW France - there’s a dark green triangle from north of Bordeaux down to the Spanish border and to about 150 miles East. That area is the Landes forest - it is huge and in the context of the  dry hot and dry summer we have suffered the area - it is a tinderbox ready to explode during summer.
The Lot valley could be impacted by smoke - this summer the smoke reached Paris. We are 80 miles to the East and there were days when the smoke was very unpleasant. The impact depended on the lack of rain and the prevailing wind. In short, I’d be more worried about the safety of driving on the roads at home than the impact of the potential forest fires.Â

kerouac

The Lot has not been affected, but one of my closest friends has a house in the Lot where he spends every other week thanks to his remote working contract which he negotiated even before covid. And he does worry about it a bit. It is just as dry there as in the Landes with just as much underbrush and dry trees everywhere. But people are learning to clear the land around their houses now. (It was already a legal obligation but not all that well respected.) However, since there have been forest fires this year in both Brittany and Alsace, it proves that it can happen anywhere.