Keystone-SDA
French firefighters are continuing their struggle against the fire of unpublished magnitude on Thursday which has been raging for more than 48 hours in the south of France.
(Keystone-ATS) By traveling 17,000 hectares, the equivalent of three -quarters of the surface of the Lake Neuchâtel, the forest fire has already been the worst fire for at least 50 years in the French Mediterranean, according to a government database listing forest fires since 1973.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the fire was “not yet fixed”, but had stopped expanding, the local representative of the State, Christian Pouget, told the press.
However, “the battle is not yet over, the fire can leave more importantly,” he added, adding that some 2000 evacuated people had not yet been able to regain their homes.
The objective of the firefighters is to set the fire by the end of the day.
Leaving Tuesday afternoon of a village located in the Corbières forest massif, the fire ravaged 17,000 hectares of vegetation and pine forest, including 13,000 burned, according to civil security. He also destroyed or damaged 36 dwellings and burned around forty vehicles, according to a provisional assessment of the prefecture.
In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, a village most affected by the fire, a 65-year-old lady who refused to leave her house was found dead on Wednesday at his home devastated by the flames. The prefecture also counted 13 injured: two hospitalized inhabitants, including a seriously burned, and eleven firefighters, one of whom suffers from a head trauma, according to the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
The local representative of the State assessed “800 to 900 hectares” the surface of vineyards devastated by the flames.
“If we are not helped, we will not get up. We lose big. It is a complete despair. It scratches me, this vineyard, all these years of work, it went up in smoke in an hour, “said AFP Fabien Vergnes, 52 -year -old winegrower.
“Rather favorable” weather
The weather conditions on Thursday “are rather favorable”, according to firefighters.
The tramontane, a dry and warm wind that strengthens fire, has been supplanted by a sea wind which “will bring more humid air than before, which is less favorable to the propagation of fire”, told AFP François Gourand, forecaster in Météo-France.
The wind that pushed the flames to the Mediterranean coastline turned on Wednesday afternoon, redirecting the danger to the Corbières massif and fifteen communes already affected by the disaster. “The back of the fire has become the front of the fire,” said Colonel Christophe Magny, local manager of firefighters.
The air system for four Canadair and three water bomber helicopters is mobilized “all day,” said firefighters.
On the third day of the fire, 2000 firefighters and 500 devices were mobilized on Thursday. The European Union has also announced itself to be “ready to mobilize” resources.
“Climate crisis”
An investigation was opened to determine the causes of fire, still unknown. Prime Minister François Bayrou spoke of a fire start by the roadside. He described the fire as a “unprecedented catastrophe” by believing that the episode was “linked to” global warming “and” drought “.
In a message of solidarity on X, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned: “The climate crisis is on our doors. If no action is taken quickly and collectively, a disaster will happen, it is a question of ‘when’ and not of ‘if’ “.
“Europe is held alongside France while the worst forest fires in its recent history are raging,” said the president of the European Commission.
At the end of July, in the middle of the summer season, civil security had recorded more than 15,000 hectares burned on the national territory for 9,000 fire departures, mainly on the Mediterranean coast.
A fire also declared itself Tuesday in a forest of the seaside resort of Tarifa, in the far south of Spain, and had stabilized on Wednesday evening, while Spain is experiencing this week an intense heat wave.
Experts believe that climate change caused by humans increases the intensity, duration and frequency of extreme heat that feeds forest fires.
