PARIS: The French Alps were on maximum avalanche alert on Thursday as Storm Eleanor swept through Europe, killing at least four people and fanning rare winter wildfires in Corsica.

With the mountains packed with skiiers for the school holidays, major resort Val d’Isere closed its runs for the day because of “heavy snowfall”, while Chamonix said it was shutting many of its lifts as a precautionary measure.

“The objective is to keep everyone safe,” said David Ponson, ski chief in the Alpine Savoie region, as many pistes were shut for a second day.

At the other extreme, nearly 400 firefighters on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica were battling two blazes fanned by Eleanor’s strong gusts of wind, with three people injured in a fire overnight.

Three hundred goats were killed in the blaze at Chiatra-Canale di Verde near the island’s east coast and ten homes burnt — five of them completely destroyed, local authorities said.

The prefecture added that the intensity of the blazes was “exceptional in the middle of winter.” Two helicopters were able to help douse the flames after the winds eased up.

Eleanor, the fourth winter storm to hit Europe since December, swept into the continent on Wednesday after battering Britain and Ireland. It has left four people dead, including a 21-year-old skiier hit by a falling tree in France and a couple in their 60s swept away on Spain’s northern Basque coast by a huge wave. A young man had to be rescued after attempting to save them.

On Thursday, firefighters said a woman in her 90s died in Crets-en-Belledonne in the French Alps after the heavy rains caused a nearby stream to overflow its banks, sending a torrent of mud and water into her home.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2018