Martigues fire is now under control

After twenty-four hours of fighting fire soldiers, the fire that devoured nearly 250 hectares of pine forest since Thursday in Martigues, in the northwest of Marseille, is now fixed, but 300 firefighters remain mobilized to drown the last embers.

At the beginning of the afternoon at the start of the afternoon, a reactivation of the fire took 8 hectares more Friday, bringing 248 hectares to a total of the total surface affected since the start of this loss on Thursday at 7 p.m. After this setback, the fire could however be definitively fixed on Friday evening, announced the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône in its ninth point of situation.

If the air resources have been disengaged, with the arrival of the night, 300 firefighters and 5 police and gendarmerie will remain at work in the night, for “Population protection” And the soil drift operations affected, with weather conditions deemed favorable.

This disaster, whose origin remains unknown, had mobilized up to 1,000 fire soldiers and up to nine planes on Thursday (seven Canadair and two Dash) and two water bomber helicopters. “Never had a fire mobilized so many means” This year in the department, according to Bruno Cassette, the sub-prefect of the district of Aix-en-Provence.

While things started to go back to normal on Friday, the town hall of Martigues was looking for his social networks the food-trucks spontaneously on Thursday to supply these rescue in mass and from several departments.

In terms of human balance sheet, still no victim was to be deplored among the population on Friday evening, the only three light injured being firefighters. As for the material assessment, it is “Very reassuring”had insisted the sub-prefect on Friday morning, “Only a dependence of a house having been damaged, as well as a farm”while 120 homes in total were “Threatened”.

A violent fire on August 4, 2020

The commune of Martigues had already been struck by a violent fire on August 4, 2020, which had traveled 1,000 hectares and completely ravaged two Villages-Vacances. Evacuations had then been carried out by the sea.

“A high -risk summer”

This new fire is the second of importance in a few days around Marseille, after the disaster of July 8, who left a car on fire on the edge of the highway, which had traveled 750 hectares between the Pennes-Mirabeau and Marseille. He had touched 91 buildings, 60 of which have been destroyed or are now uninhabitable, mainly in the Marseille district of the Estaque.

Coming on the spot the same day, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, had warned, faced with these very early fires, that we were oriented “Around a summer at high risk”. Under the effect of climate change, these extreme meteorological events should indeed multiply, alert scientists.

Moreover, other fires of fires were reported on Friday in the Bouches-du-Rhône, one of which is in Bouc-Bel-Air where a fire traveled 1.5 hectare of fields. In the neighboring department of Var, a fire, launched Thursday following a problem on a heavyweight, burned 30 hectares in Fréjus. Friday, the firefighters continued to drown the hot spots, revived by the temperatures which exceeded 30 ° C.

At the other end of France, in Brittany, the fire in the Brocéliande forest, in Paimpont (Ille-et-Vilaine), launched Thursday afternoon, was declared mastered early Friday morning by firefighters. The fire, of origin still indeterminate, burned 120 hectares of vegetation and 390 firefighters and 130 devices were mobilized on the ground, supported by several bombers of water (two air tractor and a DASH).

“In Brocéliande, in Martigues, in Fréjus, wherever the fires are currently hitting, our firefighters deliver battle”praised President Emmanuel Macron on X: “They protect lives, our forests, our heritage. I express our gratitude to them and support. »»