The probably arson fire which ravaged nearly 1,200 hectares in the Ardèche on Wednesday and overnight, without causing any casualties, is almost fixed, while in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 400 people were preventively evacuated from a campsite because of a fire.
In the Ardèche, “since 6 a.m. this Thursday morning, the fire is considered fixed, we have stabilized most of the edges but there is still an area where the fire is problematic, it is burning once morest the wind”, declared to some journalists Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Michel Chalancon of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of the department.
“The flames are still there because the territory is steep but within two hours it should be settled,” added the official. Part of the relief was “disengaged” around 4 a.m., and “for the day we should keep 300-350 firefighters”, once morest 600 at the height of the mobilization.
From midnight, only one fire was still “active”, around the town of Lussas, near Aubenas, on which five separate fire starts had been recorded in the morning. Three other fire starts took place within a radius of 10 km.
“We didn’t stop”
The sector still active Thursday morning is located between St-Didier-sur-Aubenas and Lavilledieu.
At the start of the evening, the public prosecutor of Privas had, on Twitter, affirmed that the “criminal track” was “privileged”. “GAV (police custody) in progress,” he also tweeted, without immediately saying how many people were affected.
According to France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Aubenas gendarmerie arrested a suspect near a fire start and found equipment in his vehicle which “might incriminate him”.
At least 350 people had been evacuated from the small tourist town of Vogüé and surrounding campsites, near the Ardèche gorges, but the fire did not cause any injuries or threaten homes. Of the approximately 150 people who left Vogüé for a multipurpose hall in a nearby town, around thirty had returned to their homes by the end of the evening.
Water bombers (five Canadair and a Dash aircraft), as well as a hundred intervention vehicles and a civil security helicopter were mobilized.
“We did not stop” from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., testified Wednesday evening Romain Charbonnier, 22, 1st class volunteer firefighter, not far from a burning tree in front of a charred landscape where the smell of burning seizes the nostrils.
In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, some 400 people were preventively evacuated on Wednesday evening from a campsite in Castellane in the face of the progression of a fire which has already covered 350 hectares in the neighboring town of Rougon.
The fire broke out on Tuesday in Rougon, a village perched on the heights of the Verdon Regional Natural Park. Some 200 firefighters are mobilized to limit the progression of the fire which is still very active in areas difficult to access by land means.
Fire fixed in the Hérault
Wednesday near Montpellier, a fire that burned 800 hectares of vegetation might be fixed.
“No casualties are to be deplored and no homes have been affected by the fire”, announced at the end of the followingnoon the prefecture of Hérault.
These new fires come just following the two “exceptional” fires which ravaged nearly 21,000 hectares of forest in Gironde for twelve days and led to the evacuation of some 36,000 people.
In this department, some 500 firefighters were still on site Wednesday to deal with “the edges and hot spots”, probably for several more weeks, Thomas Couturier, spokesman for the firefighters, told AFP. However, the red vigilance for the risk of fire has been lifted.
One of the department’s symbol sites, the Dune du Pilat, was able to reopen on Wednesday, “in secure conditions and with guided paths”.
“Everyday Heroes”
In this sensitive context, the announcement on Wednesday of the death of a 54-year-old volunteer firefighter, victim of a bacterial infection, who intervened in mid-July on a fire in the south of Avignon aroused many tributes in the class. policy, including that of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
On the judicial level, “an investigation has been opened on a criminal hypothesis” regarding the fire in Gignac, indicated the prosecutor of Montpellier, Fabrice Bélargent.
Also in Hérault, in another investigation for “voluntary damage by fire”, a volunteer firefighter was placed in police custody on Wednesday.
In addition to the mega-fires in Gironde, several fires also affected the southeast this summer, with in particular 1,600 hectares going up in smoke south of Avignon in mid-July.
If summers are dry in the south, with global warming, the intensity of these episodes of drought is likely to increase further, according to UN experts. In France, the level of drought has reached a record with 91 departments out of 96 forced to impose restrictions on the use of water.
