Mega-feu, “fire of the century”, “the largest in France since 1949”, as said by the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who came on the spot on Wednesday with the Prime Minister. It is the most important fire in France since 2006, the start of recordings, and since the 1970s for the Mediterranean area, according to the Forest Fire Database (BDIFF) of the government.
The superlatives add up and the fire continues to devour the hectares of garrigue, this typically Mediterranean vegetation made of brush, bushes and small trees or even pine forest.
Thursday’s weather conditions are more favorable but the wind should get up at the end of the morning. The fire changed direction Wednesday evening, he returns to his steps inwards the country. “The back of the fire has become the front of the fire,” said Colonel Christophe Magny, boss of the firefighters of the Aude department.
And the still uncontrollable front returns to “its starting point” and “fairly inaccessible wooded areas”, added the secretary general of the departmental prefecture, Lucie Roesch.
The tramontane, this dry and warm wind that strengthens fire, has been replaced in the night by a sea wind that blows this Thursday, and will bring more humid air, which is less favorable to the extension of the fire.
16,000 hectares who left for smoke
15 municipalities of the Corbières massif have already been directly or indirectly impacted by the disaster.
Leaving Tuesday afternoon of the village of Ribaute, between Carcassonne and Narbonne, the summer fire in France ravaged 16,000 hectares of vegetation and pine forest on Wednesday evening, “more than the town of Paris”, according to Colonel Magny. It also destroyed or damaged 25 homes and burned 35 vehicles, according to the provisional assessment of the prefecture.
