10,000 hectares traveled, a serious injured man, axis France-Spanish closed-L’Express

Since its start, shortly after 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, the fire spread very quickly and had to reach the A9 motorway in the night, which runs along the Mediterranean. There, We will position a lot of means on the highway in order to attack the fire there, which could constitute a barrier For the progression of the flames, warns the secretary general of the prefecture of Aude Lucie Roesch, attached by AFP.

Not far from there, in the tourist town of La Palme, two campsites hosting around 500 vacationers were evacuated beforehand.

At the end of the afternoon Tuesday, the flames, fueled by the wind blowing in gusts, jumped from brush forests, before melting on the village of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, where at least eight houses were burned.

At the Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse wine cooperative, only a few pallets in the parking lot burned. But the neighboring house is destroyed, charred vehicles smoke in the courtyard, a pile of wood cut for the winter turned into a blaze.

When we saw the wind turn in our direction, we evacuated the cooperative. The fire rushed to the village at an impressive speed, the village was almost surrounded by the flames, the fire passed from one house to another. Fires, we see it every year, but like that, nevertestifies Anael Payrou, the director of the cooperative cellar.

Two people were injured, including a person in absolute emergency, seriously burned, According to the prefecture.

In a message on X, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron sent a message of support for firefighters and victims. All means of the nation are mobilizedhe assured, calling for the greatest caution.

Injured firefighters

The vacationers of the Lagrasse and Fabrezan campsites were evacuated preventively, as well as a thirty houses in Tourisan, another village in the sector. The fire took in several gardens, where residents were trying to counter the advance of the flames using watering pipes, sometimes wearing flip -flops, noted an AFP photographer.

The wind is weakening. Thanks to the night, there is a little more humidity. We can hope that the fire is progressing slower this nightobserves the secretary general of the prefecture of Aude.

On site, 1,250 firefighters are mobilized. Seven were slightly injured. Until nightfall, nine Canadia, five dash and two water bomber helicopters, i.e. the maximum of national capacities underlines the sub-prefect, took turns above the blaze, without managing to master it.

In the villages of Lagrasse, Fabrezan, Tourisan, Coustouge, Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, solidarity is organized, municipal halls welcome people evacuated or victims.

Many departmental routes are closed to traffic to facilitate the work of firefighters, and 5,000 homes are deprived of electricity in around twenty villages.

Remain confined

Populations are asked to remain confined within their dwellings unless order of evacuation given by the firefightersinsists the prefecture in a press release.

The prefect of Aude called for caution and to learn via official sources, without relaying fake news.

Mined by a persistent drought that makes the vegetation easily flammable, the Aude department had been placed on Tuesday in red vigilance with forest fires, with a risk very high fire, while an episode of heat moved to the southwest of France, according to Météo-France.

Since the start of the summer, several fires have intervened in Aude. One of them, at the beginning of July, the most important in the department for 40 years, had traveled 2,000 hectares and mobilized nearly 1,000 firefighters near Narbonne.

Assigned by drought and the uprooting vineyards, which had a natural fire cutting function and slowed down the advance of the flames, the Aude department has experienced a sharp increase in burnt surfaces in recent years.

The director of the Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse cooperative cellar fears daylight on Wednesday, for fear of seeing that the production of the 400 hectares of vines is lost. We had the frost in 2022, the drought in 2023 and 2024, he lists, and this year fire. We have the impression that we are cursed. We had to harvest in 15 days ….

We had to snatch thousands of hectares, we removed natural firewallshe regrets.