At the heart of a summer marked, in France, by high temperatures and an acute drought, a fire in an area of vineyards and Mediterranean vegetation, about twenty kilometers from Montpellier (Hérault), traveled, Tuesday, July 26, nearly 700 hectares.
According to a situation report, drawn up by the Hérault prefecture at 6:30 p.m., the fire « continu[ait] its progress towards the east ». About 130 inhabitants of a village of some 500 souls, Aumelas, were evacuated as a preventive measure. The same decision was made regarding 150 people gathered for a wedding in another village. No casualties were reported.
“The propagation conditions are very unfavorable” with very dry vegetation, explained the sub-prefect of Lodève, Eric Suzanne, during a press conference, adding that the fires had been “driven by a strong wind”. The objective is to “fix the fire” by 10 p.m. and the arrival of night which prevents rescue planes from flying over the area for security reasons.
Starts of fires “probably malicious”
“The wind will drop with the night normally, so there will be a relative calm”however nuanced Mr. Suzanne. “A judicial investigation has been opened on a criminal hypothesis”, said the prosecutor of Montpellier, Fabrice Bélargent. The commander of the relief operations, Colonel Sylvain Besson, spoke for his part of the departures of fires “probably malicious”.
“We think it’s criminal, it’s disastrous”reacted the mayor of Gignac, Jean-François Soto, recalling that a Natura 2000 area for the preservation of biodiversity was nearby. “When you see all the efforts we make, all the means we put (…) and the end result is tough”he commented.
“In total, nearly 600 firefighters are engaged. Two Canadairs and a Dash [avions bombardiers d’eau] are also deployed, as well as two planes from the departmental cell of the Hérault firefighters”, also specified the prefecture of Hérault. The yellow and red planes of the civil security flew over the wooded areas interspersed with surfaces of vines, noted a photographer from Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the spot.
150 hectares destroyed in Hérault and Aude, 1,600 south of Avignon
The firefighters had been working since the end of the morning on two fire starts, separated by 1.5 kilometers, which broke out in the municipalities of Saint-Bauzille-de-la-Sylve, Gignac and Aumelas, in a sparsely populated area. The two fires then met, added the prefecture.
In addition to the megafires in Gironde which destroyed thousands of hectares of forest, several fires also affected the south-east of France this summer. Last week, 150 hectares had been destroyed in Hérault and Aude. In the neighboring department of Gard, some 650 hectares of forest had also been ravaged in early July, while 1,600 hectares burned south of Avignon in mid-July.
The Hérault department was at risk of fire on Tuesday ” raised “ at ” very high “ following the clumps. If summers are dry in the South, with global warming, the intensity of these episodes of drought is likely to increase further, according to UN climate experts.
In France, with global warming ” the activity [des feux] will intensify in areas where it is already strong, in the Southeast”said Jean-Luc Dupuy, expert at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae) at the end of June.
The risk of fire is maximum in France after a wave of heat wave. Ninety departments out of 96, one « record », are subject to restrictions on the use of water on Tuesday. The forest fires that have raged in Europe in recent weeks, particularly in the west of the continent hit by heat waves, have already affected more area than during the whole of 2021, according to the European specialized monitoring service.