The situation is judgedvery unfavorableby firefighters in the south of the Gironde, marked by renewed fires from the gigantic fire of July.
The situation is judgedvery unfavorable” by firefighters in Hostens and Saint-Magne, in South Gironde, where renewed fires from the gigantic Landiras fire in July ravaged 1,000 ha of pines on Tuesday evening, requiring the evacuation as a precaution of 3,500 people from this forest sector , according to the prefecture.
These preventive evacuations concern, at this stage, the towns of the municipalities of Saint-Magne and Hostens and a district of Belin-Béliet, announced the prefecture of Gironde in a tweet, which reassessed its balance sheet upwards to “1000 hectares of (pines) burned at 11:30 p.m.“, against 400 announced at 10:00 p.m. The municipality of Hostens announced for its part on its Facebook account a “total evacuation order from the village“, with a “possibility of refuge in the village halls of Belin-Béliet“.
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Since Tuesday 1:00 p.m., 300 firefighters supported by Canadairs, Dash and water bomber helicopter have been fighting against a virulent resumption of flames in this forest sector close to the already disaster area of Landiras. “The situation is very unfavorable. We are keeping all assets available on the ground for the entire night, with many hot spot defenses to come“, underlined Lieutenant-Colonel Mendousse, communication officer at the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of the Gironde.
The firefighters have recourse in particular totactical lightsto create buffer zones and stop the advance of the fire. During operations,one truck and three light vehicles were destroyed but no firefighters were injured“, said Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse. “We see a very black smoke, 2 or 3 km from the village“, testified to AFP in the afternoon Pascal Bizzari, municipal councilor of Hostens, a town of 1,300 inhabitants on the border with the Landes.
“Adverse weather conditions»
These resumptions of fire in Saint-Magne and Hostens noted around 1:00 p.m., “due to unfavorable weather conditions“, according to the Gironde prefecture, are located about twenty kilometers from Landiras, the epicenter of the gigantic fire which engulfed nearly 14,000 ha of forest in July and which is still not “mastered” nowadays. “These are hot spots that reactivated in the early afternoon, during the hottest hours of the day.“, explained in the afternoon to AFP the Sdis de la Gironde, describing a “fairly fast firefanned by hot winds.
North of Landiras, in Cabanac, another resumption of fire at 3:00 p.m. supported by 80 firefighters and aerial means destroyed 20 hectares of forest but this fire “no more progress“Tuesday evening, according to Sdis Gironde. The situation is alsofavorable“and the fire”fixedin Sainte-Hélène in the Médoc, where 15 hectares of forest went up in smoke on Tuesday afternoon around 3:45 p.m., mobilizing a hundred firefighters and aerial means.
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With the return of high heat this week in Gironde placed in heat wave orange vigilance, the firefighters had to deal with this “hard day“from Tuesday no less than”10 forest fires (…) with areas ranging from a few thousand m2 to several hectares“, on the whole of the department, underlined the lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Mendousse. “We have called on all of our on-call and on-call staff and reserve personnel“, he added. The Gironde prefecture has activated a departmental operational center (COD).