The fire triggered by a poorly extinguished barbecue transported on the highway and which consumed on Sunday a total of nearly 400 hectares in the Aude and forced the evacuation of a hundred people, is under control, the prefect of the Aude said this morning. “All the fires are fixed, we are the processing of the edges and the extinction of the stumps,” also told AFP a spokesperson for the Aude rescue services.
The origin of the disaster comes from “a barbecue, which was transported to the highway, behind a vehicle, on a trailer,” said Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau last night.
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A suspect was arrested and placed in police custody for “involuntary destruction by wood and forest fire,” the Narbonne prosecutor Eric Camous told AFP. According to the first elements of the survey, it would be a merchant who, after a market, did not realize that his brazier was not extinguished. It remains to be determined whether it is “a human error” or “a mechanical accident”, continued the prosecutor. “It is unconsciousness, even worse,” said the prefect with our colleagues from the Independent.
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The voracity of the flames and the speed with which they propagated in the Corbières massif led to the evacuation of a hundred people. The most “worrying” fire burned 180 ha alone in the bizanet sector, the authorities detailed.
A huge plume of orange and black smoke stood out again yesterday at the end of the day, in the afternoon on the Fontfroide massif, Natura 2000 site and a sensitive area due to its major migration corridor forest and its difficult steep access.
Eight aircraft were mobilized, as well as more than 150 firefighters, added Mr. Retailleau, according to whom several reinforcements should bring the number of fire soldiers to around 400.
The risk of fire is very high in the Aude, due to the scorching temperatures coupled with the drought of the brush.
