The 33 -year -old man “was indicted by the investigating judge in the context of the judicial information which was opened at the Narbonne court, mainly for involuntary fires that destroyed the forest massif,” said the prosecutor of the Narbonne Republic, Eric Camous.
“He was placed in pre -trial detention, for a period of four months, the time for investigations,” the magistrate told journalists.
The fire burned 400 hectares in the Corbières, near the town of Bizanet. The fire left on Sunday around 4:00 p.m. of a barbecue that the itinerant trader and caterer was carrying on a trailer, while traveling on the Toulouse-Narbonne motorway, on the return from a wedding. He was arrested three hours later and placed in police custody.
The prosecutor said that the driver, who recognized the facts and expressed regrets, faces a sentence of three years in prison and 45,000 euros fine.
Without license or insurance
He also led without a license, his vehicle is not assured and he was already convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and narcotics.
When he saw smoke behind his vehicle, he stopped, tried to turn it off, then alerted the firefighters. Upon arrival, firefighters, gendarmes and ONF agents found that the barbecue-Kroche was in flames, according to the prosecutor.
The “Braise projections caused several fire starts. These had certainly been supplied by the speed of the vehicle and the heat,” he added.
The fire, caused by several starts of fire over 12 km, caused the evacuation of a campsite, an abbey and housing as well as the closure of the A61 motorway for several hours.
Injured firefighters
At the height of the fire, 600 firefighters from twelve departments were mobilized. Nine of them were injured during the intervention and hospitalized.
During the prosecutor’s press conference, in which he also participated, the prefect of Aude Christian Pouget stressed the importance of “prepositioned patrols” of firefighters and gendarmes in the high -risk departments like Aude, believing that they had “certainly avoided even greater fires”, thanks to “very rapid first interventions”.
Earlier Tuesday, on the move at the scene of the claim in Aude, the Minister to the Minister of the Interior François-Noël Buffet pointed out “behaviors that harm” the preservation of the environment and human lives, saying that they “deserve a sanction”.
“The voluntary fact is of course condemnable, but negligence itself is not acceptable,” he said, highlighting that 90% of the fires are of human origin.
The fire has been brought under control since Monday but there remains fumarolles, “potential restarts of certain households” which are monitored on Tuesday, said the minister, welcoming “the responsiveness” and the “professionalism” of firefighters from twelve departments.
