HORTENS, Gironde /PARIS (Reuters) – The fire which resumed on Tuesday afternoon in the south of the Gironde continued to progress overnight, covering an additional 600 hectares, according to local authorities, who underline the persistence of conditions ” particularly difficult”.
The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, are expected at the end of the morning in Gironde, already confronted with two major fires last month.
In addition to Gironde, other departments are also currently facing major forest fires – including Lozère and Aveyron, or even Maine-et-Loire – and Gérald Darmanin announced on Wednesday that France had called on the Mechanism European Union Civil Protection in order to obtain reinforcements, in particular aerial reinforcements.
“The fire continued to spread last night but in a much less virulent way. We managed to contain it during the night and we were able to protect the town of Belin-Béliet in particular”, explained on BFMTV the lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Mendousse , communication officer of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of Gironde.
“It’s slower than during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, however, it must be understood that the progression of 5,000 hectares in a single night is something never seen in Gironde. Despite everything, the fire covered 600 hectares that night,” he added.
The Gironde fire, which is also raging in the neighboring Landes, “burned more than 6,800 hectares of forest”, notes the prefecture of Gironde in its last update on Thursday morning.
“In total, nearly 1,100 firefighters are engaged” and additional reinforcements are expected to fight this fire which has already led to the evacuation of around 10,000 people, some of whom had already had to leave their homes last July.
“AN OGRE”
With the drought and the heat wave, the conditions are “particularly difficult”, underlines the prefecture, while the firefighters evoke an “atypical” spread of the flames.
“The fire has a relatively atypical and aberrant behavior”, explained on BFMTV the lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Mendousse.
It “spreads a bit in all directions and not just downwind,” he observed.
For his part, the president of the National Federation of Firefighters of France (FNSPF), Grégory Allione, stressed on RTL that it is “a fire that goes very quickly”.
“He’s an ogre, he’s a monster,” he added.
“It’s a real disaster, economic, ecological, it’s awful and the territory is totally disfigured. We’re disgusted, we’re exhausted, we’ve been fighting for a month, there, it’s the drop that’s overflowing the vase”, estimated on Radio Classique the mayor of Hostens, Jean-Louis Dartiailh.
In Maine-et-Loire, the two fires which have ravaged more than 1,500 hectares since Monday have now been fixed, the department prefecture announced on Twitter on Thursday morning.
More than 500 firefighters are still mobilized and vigilance remains required due to unfavorable weather conditions, it is specified.
(Report Stéphane Mahé in Hostens, written by Matthieu Protard, Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Myriam Rivet, edited by Kate Entringer)