Author and food advocate Sophie Morris has described her experience of being caught up in a wildfire in southern France as "terrifying".
The wildfire, near the town of Biscarrosse, forced 23,000 people to be evacuated.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Ms Morris said that she had been staying at the Mayotte Vacances campsite with her husband, mother and two young sons when the fire broke out.
The family had just arrived at the campsite and were on a nearby lake beach when she noticed a large cloud of black smoke.
"I just looked up from the water and you could just see a big black smoke - that was at about 3pm so clearly it was a fire."
Ms Morris said campsite staff initially reassured guests that it was a small vehicle fire and would be brought under control.
But as the afternoon went on, the smoke worsened and the fire spread into the surrounding forest.
"It was originally a van that went on fire on the side of the road ... so I guess it just got the ground and then just spread into the forest and it just spread so quickly."
By evening, firefighting planes were flying overhead dropping water on the blaze.
"There were planes flying really low to the ground... and they were just dropping water, so we were watching all this."
Guests were told not to leave and to keep roads clear for emergency crews, but Ms Morris said the situation was frightening.
"It was very scary because it seemed so close with the amount of smoke."
The family went to sleep but were woken at around 3am by alarms sounding throughout the campsite.
"I'll never forget that noise ... just the sirens; it was just like: 'I can't believe this is actually happening'."
She said her seven-year-old son was "absolutely terrified" as the family prepared to evacuate.
Guests were initially told to leave on foot and head towards a nearby lake, but Ms Morris said they decided to join others leaving by car.
"There was like lines of cars and we were thinking 'what do we do? Do we go on our cars? Do we go on foot?', so we just decided 'let's get in the car'."
She said the decision brought relief, as those without cars had to wait by the lake.
The family left in slow-moving traffic, with flames visible through the forest.
"You could see the flames, we were literally sitting in standstill traffic looking at the flames through the forest and you could actually see ash falling around the car, it looked like snow in the headlights."
A journey that would normally take 10 minutes took almost two hours before they reached the beach.
Ms Morris said local people then helped evacuees, with a café providing free tea, coffee, breakfast and fire blankets.
"They were amazing ... there were people there from 4am and they were giving out free teas and coffees, fire blankets for people if they needed them and breakfast if we needed it."
She said it became clear they would not be able to return to the campsite.
"I literally had three hours sleep, so it was very hard to think straight and you're running on adrenaline."
Ms Morris said the campsite company helped find the family alternative accommodation further south.
"They were really amazing. I just told them the situation and they found us a place about 90 minutes south, which we were able to access."
