It is a fire that will unfortunately remain in history because of its magnitude and its high speed of propagation. With its calcined landscapes as far as the eye can see, the fire, which traveled 16,000 hectares, ravaged the Aude in just 48 hours.
Two days after being mastered, the investigation is now moving towards the criminal track. Here is what you need to know about this fire that made one dead and two seriously injured, and its unprecedented character.
A potentially voluntary origin
The fire left around 4:15 p.m. on August 5 of the commune of Ribaute, about forty kilometers equidistence between Narbonne and Carcassonne. He broke out along the DR212 which links the villages of Lagrasse and Ribaute.
An investigation was opened on August 6 by the Aude gendarmerie services and the Montpellier research section. The Carcassonne prosecutor’s office, initially competent geographically, drew on August 9 for the benefit of the regional center of the Montpellier prosecutor’s office. “Experts believe that in view of the starting conditions of the fire, he could have a criminal cause resulting from a voluntary act,” said the Montpellier prosecutor on Wednesday. However, “this first expertise necessarily requires being confirmed by additional investigations,” he warned.
A particularly rapid propagation speed
The firefighters intervened in less than seven minutes and mobilized “the maximum of national air capacities”, according to the prefecture. But, despite a “colossal” device of more than 2,000 firefighters, the Corbières massif has ignited “Gallop”, reports Bruno Zubieta, elected from Villesèque-des-Corbières. The zone traveled by fire increased from 50 to 4,000 hectares in five hours, reaching 16,000 hectares in just over 48 hours. That day, Météo-France had also placed the Aude in red vigilance for “very high” risk of fires.
Under the combined effect of the tramontane, a dry and warm wind, blowing in gusts at 50 km/h, of drought, a humidity rate of less than 30 %, of temperatures above 30 degrees, the fire has reached “a speed of propagation of 1,000 hectares per hour”, according to colonel Christophe Magny, head of the fire and rescue service.
The flames moved to “incredible” speed from 5 to 6 km/h, explains the agroclimatologist Serge Zaka. Mastered on August 10, five days after triggering, the fire will not be “extinguished for several weeks”, warned Colonel Magny.
An aggravating topography
Made up of mountains and mountains, the Corbières massif, transition between the Massif Central and the Pyrenees, has a steep relief which was able, according to the expert Serge Zaka, create a “chimney effect”: hot air rises quickly, creating “a vertical air current which accelerates combustion and aspires the flames up”.
According to him, this type of relief creates an “earlier inflammation” and a “faster heating” of plants, especially since the conifers and the garrigue of the Corbières are already a powerful natural fuel.
A strong impact on the local population
A 65-year-old woman was found dead at her home in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse. The prefecture counted 24 injured, including a seriously burned resident and a firefighter victim of a head trauma.
At least 2,000 people were evacuated from the 16 victims of victims, most could not regain their homes until August 8. Up to 5,000 homes have been deprived of electricity due to burnt or collapsed pylons and posts, eight municipalities were no longer powered by drinking water. And 36 houses were destroyed, as well as 21 agricultural hangars and chalets, and 54 vehicles burned.
Our file on fires
Finally, some 2,200 hectares of cultures have been traveled by fire, according to the prosecutor, including “1,000 to 1,500 hectares of vineyards have been strongly impacted”, according to the vice-president of the FNSEA Jérôme Despey.
An extraordinary fire
“Catastrophe of an unprecedented scale”, according to Prime Minister François Bayrou, the fire has been the worst for at least 50 years in the French Mediterranean, according to the government’s Forest Fire Database in France (BDIFF).
With its 16,000 hectares traveled, 13,000 of which burned, according to civil security, it is also the biggest fire in the summer of 2025 in France. At the end of July, half the summer season and before it was triggered, civil security had counted more than 15,000 hectares burned on national territory, mainly on the Mediterranean coast.
