PARIS (Reuters) – A “very virulent” fire has already burned 6,000 hectares in Gironde, the day after an extraordinary fire resumption in mid-July in Landiras, in the south of the department, the Gironde prefecture announced on Wednesday in a press release.
The fire, which resumed at midday on Tuesday and left the area in which it had been fixed, is “very virulent and has spread to the Landes department” despite the mobilization of 500 firefighters, specifies the prefecture.
No casualties are to be deplored at this stage but around 3,800 people have already been evacuated, nearly 2,000 people were being evacuated early in the morning and 16 houses were destroyed, added the prefecture.
“We are approaching a day of very high risk, the weather is extremely unfavorable,” warned Martin Guespereau, delegate prefect of New Aquitaine for defense and security, during a press briefing in the middle of the morning Landiras.
In addition to the heat wave and the drought, the presence of peat in the region “means that the fire of July, had in fact not stopped, it was never declared extinguished, it was buried”, a- he pointed out.
“The situation remains critical”, added during this press briefing Marc Vermeulen, head of the Gironde fire brigade, specifying that national reinforcements were expected.
Civil Security clarified on Wednesday morning on Twitter that six reinforcement columns (about 300 people) were in transit.
In the neighboring Landes department, towards which the fire spread during the night, just over 200 people were evacuated and nearly 200 hectares burned, said Franoise Tahri, prefect of Landes, during the Landiras press briefing.
Two firefighters were injured, she said.
Regarding the fire that broke out on Monday between Lozre and Aveyron, leading to the evacuation of several thousand people, the fire is not yet under control but it has stopped progressing, reports the daily La Dpche on its site Wednesday morning, citing the departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis) of Aveyron.
Interior Minister Grald Darmanin announced on Twitter on Tuesday that he would go to Aveyron on Wednesday to take stock of the situation.
According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis) https://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/effis.statistics/estimates, 256 fires have already been recorded in France since the beginning of the year, with a total burned area of nearly 50,600 hectares (compared to 214 fires and 30,652 hectares of forests destroyed by fire over the whole of 2021).
(Written by Myriam Rivet, said by Kate Entringer and Jean-Stphane Brosse)