Lhe Atlantic coast should blow this Tuesday at the level of the heat wave, after a complicated night in Gironde on the front of the two giant fires which have already ravaged 19,000 hectares of forest. Nearly 1,700 firefighters from all over France, supported by significant air resources, are still mobilized against two blazes which burned 4,700 hectares of forest in La Teste-de-Buch and 12,000 in Landiras, 50 km away. east, according to the last point of the prefecture of Gironde Monday evening.
In these two municipalities, 16,000 people had to be evacuated on Monday July 18 by scorching heat, with more than 40 ° C, bringing the total number of evacuees to 32,000 in six days. At the end of the afternoon, a new fire broke out in Vensac, in the Médoc, burning 70 hectares. On Monday, a huge plume of smoke was visible from the Arcachon basin. At the foot of the Dune du Pilat, the five campsites, from which 6,000 holidaymakers had been evacuated on Wednesday night, “90% burned down”, said the prefect of Gironde, Fabienne Buccio.
Many explosions sounded Monday afternoon, due to gas canisters left in campsites and abandoned restaurants. “We don’t let ourselves be defeated, the fire doesn’t do what it wants, we annoy it. We are building firewalls, ditches, everything we can do around it, ”launched the prefect. “The evacuation should allow the firefighters to concentrate on attacking the fire,” Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse, spokesman for the firefighters, told AFP.
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A man taken into custody
A man was taken into custody on Monday afternoon as part of the investigation into the Landiras fire, which alone has burned 12,000 hectares of forest since Tuesday July 12, announced the prosecutor of the Republic of Bordeaux in a press release. The ongoing investigation, “which is continuing with numerous expert reports and hearings of witnesses”, was opened for “destruction by fire of wood, forest, moor, maquis or plantation of others which could cause damage to people” committed in the town of Landiras, according to Frédérique Porterie.
The prosecution announced on Friday that it favored the “criminal thesis” to explain the outbreak of this fire: “The criminal identification technicians were able to make findings which accredit a deliberately malicious act”, writes the prosecution. “On July 12, at 4:25 p.m., a mechanic who was traveling with his daughter […] observed […] a vehicle parked on the side of the road that quickly drove off in sight. When he arrived at the parking lot, the witness noticed that the fire was spreading. He stopped and tried in vain to turn it off, ”explains the prosecutor.
The investigators made a connection between this disaster and “other fire starts observed in the same area on the same day, but at different times”, as well as for “three other fire starts observed between July 13 and 15 “, “quickly circumscribed”. However, “clues remain to be exploited in order to eliminate or retain the thesis of the same author”, says the prosecutor again.
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The accidental track at La Teste-de-Buch
Regarding the fire in La Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon, local authorities explained last week that it was due to a broken down van that caught fire on a forest road. A version confirmed Monday by the prosecution, evoking “facts which are not of a criminal nature and are part of a context of involuntary crime”.
According to the press release, “a technical assistant from a campsite located in the area was heading (on July 12) towards the waste disposal center with a Ford Transit vehicle equipped with a dumpster. A sudden breakdown affected the vehicle, the driver got out and noticed that flames were developing under the dumpster. He immediately alerted the fire brigade, but the fire, out of control, spread rapidly. Although he had a fire extinguisher in the vehicle, the driver declared that he had not had time to grab it to put out the fire”. “The vehicle is still inaccessible”, but will be “placed under seal” as soon as access is authorized, added the prosecutor, who specified that “a technical examination scheduled for Monday could not take place given the dangerousness of the site “.
This expertise is, according to her, “essential to check, in particular, the mechanical condition of the vehicle and its state of maintenance before the start of the disaster”. This investigation, entrusted to the national police, is open for “involuntary destruction by fire of wood, forest, moor, maquis or plantation of others due to the breach of an obligation of safety or prudence”. The magistrates of the Regional Environment Pole of the Bordeaux Public Prosecutor’s Office are associated with the judicial investigations “so that the environmental damage of what can be described as an ecological drama […] be accurately assessed,” the statement said.
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