By Gus Trompiz

PARIS (Reuters) -In southern France’s sun-seared Aude region, farmers have been reluctantly digging up vines, spurred on by declining wine consumption and state subsidies, removing a natural, moisture-filled brake against wildfires.

The loss of vineyards – nearly 5,000 hectares in Aude in the past 12 months alone – and its impact have been laid bare this week as the biggest wildfire in France since 1949 sweeps through the region, fanned by strong winds and parched vegetation.

On Thursday, around 2,000 firefighters battled to control a blaze that has burned an area bigger than Paris, scorching homes, forest and farmland, and killing one person.

Gusting winds saw the fire’s frontlines jump hundreds of metres across a tinder-box landscape at a time, with the blaze at one st

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