After 24 hours of fighting, the fire that devoured nearly 250 ha of pine forest since Thursday in Martigues, northwest of Marseille, is now fixed, but 300 firefighters remained mobilized to drown the last embers.
🔥 Violent fire tonight in Martigues.
👨🚒 More than 1000 #Pompiers mobilized to contain the flames and protect the city.
💪 Support for residents and help.
⚠️ The state must act: a real national plan against fires is urgent.#Martigues pic.twitter.com/k6lt7xaF8s— Jeremy Bacchi (@JeremyBacchi) July 18, 2025
At the start of the afternoon early Friday, a reactivation of the fire took eight hectares more, bringing 248 ha in total the total area affected since the start of this loss 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.
Firefighters and police at work during the night
If the air resources were disengaged, with the arrival of the night, 300 firefighters and five police patrols and gendarmerie were to stay at work overnight, for “the protection of populations” and the procedures for drunk soils, with weather conditions deemed favorable.
This disaster, whose origin remains unknown, had mobilized up to 1,000 fire soldiers and up to nine planes (seven Canadair and two dash) and two water bomber helicopters on Thursday. “Never had a fire mobilized so many means” this year in the department, had underlined Bruno Rassette, the sub-prefect of the Aix-en-Provence district.
The population had also been confined until Friday morning in two hamlets of the town.
No victim to deplore
While things started to go back to normal on Friday, the town hall of Martigues was looking for its social networks the food trucks spontaneously came 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”, 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”.
This fire, however, reactivated bad memories in a highly exposed region. On Thursday, the Bouches-du-Rhône were again on a red vigilance forest fires.
“We saw the Calvary of August 4, 2020,” said a resident, Sophie, on the town hall’s Facebook page. That day, five years ago, the commune of Martigues was struck by a violent fire which had traveled 1,000 ha and completely ravaged two holiday villages. 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 ha 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 there the same day, the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau had warned, in the face of 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.
And in addition to the Martigues fire, around twenty other fire starts were reported on Friday in the Bouches-du-Rhône, one of which was in Bouc-Bel-Air where a fire has traveled 1.5 ha of fields.
In Brocéliande, in Martigues, in Fréjus, wherever fires are currently hitting, our firefighters are fighting battle. They protect lives, our forests, our heritage. I express our gratitude to them and support.
– Emmanuel Macron (@emmanuelmacron) July 18, 2025
In the neighboring department of Var, a fire triggered Thursday following a problem on a heavy goods vehicle burned 30 ha in Fréjus. Friday, he was under control but 130 firefighters were to remain mobilized during the night from Friday to Saturday for drowning.
At the other end of France, in Brittany, the fire in the Brocéliande forest in Paimpont (Ille-et-Vilaine), launched Thursday afternoon, had been declared mastered early Friday morning by firefighters.
The fire, also of indefinite origin, burned 120 ha 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 fires are currently hitting, our firefighters are fighting battle,” praised President Emmanuel Macron on X: “They protect lives, our forests, our heritage. I express our recognition and support to them. ”
