George Clooney's family evacuates French home as wildfire approaches

George Clooney and his family have been forced to leave their residence in southeastern France as a wildfire burns close by, his agent said on Thursday. The actor, known for the "Ocean's Eleven" films, addressed a letter to Didier Bremond, the mayor of Brignoles, a town roughly 90 kilometres east of Marseille, according to publicist Guido Gotz.

In the letter, Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, said they did not know whether their home would survive "this terrible moment," but they wanted to assure the mayor that they would help restore the community no matter what happened.

The fire near Brignoles started Wednesday afternoon and had scorched around 100 hectares, local officials said. That blaze is much smaller than the massive fire that has affected the Bordeaux region in southwestern France over recent days.

Authorities in the Bordeaux area have been dealing with a major wildfire that forced thousands to evacuate. On Friday, French officials began allowing residents to return home gradually after declaring that the fire was contained. The evacuation order was lifted for 12 districts in the west and southwest of Bordeaux, permitting 144,000 of more than 220,000 displaced people to go back, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.

"The situation is stable, the fire is contained within its perimeter," Brocas said, noting that overnight conditions with lower temperatures and higher humidity had helped. Water-bombing helicopters remained in the area, and authorities warned that high temperatures and stronger winds were expected later in the afternoon.

The Clooney family has deep ties to France. In December, the French government announced that Clooney, his wife and their twins, Ella and Alexander, had been granted French citizenship. The couple bought their estate in France in 2021 and have lived there with their children. In an interview with Esquire last October, Clooney described the property as their primary residence.