Major wildfire rages near Paris as 850 firefighters battle Fontainebleau blaze

In the ancient forest of Fontainebleau, a place where Parisians have long sought solace from the city, fire has redrawn the boundary between refuge and ruin. A midsummer blaze displaced roughly a thousand residents and summoned 850 firefighters to battle flames intense enough to demand water drawn from the Seine itself. That two individuals have been arrested in connection with the fire introduces the shadow of human will into what might otherwise be mourned as natural catastrophe — a reminder that some disasters carry within them the weight of choice.