A village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence was preventively evacuated on Tuesday due to a fire that covered 210 ha without ever threatening homes, we learned from firefighters.
“The village of Niozelles, which was the most exposed, has been evacuated,” the prefecture told AFP without being able to indicate the precise number of people who left their homes, while the figure of 200 evacuations had been announced in a first time.
A gymnasium was made available to the evacuees by the town hall of the neighboring town of Forcalquier but, according to the prefecture, only a hundred people showed up there at the end of the day and barely twenty remained on site. Five people from the Civil Protection are mobilized for their care.
“In these situations, it is often difficult to distinguish between people who self-evacuate, those whose evacuation is supervised, those who go to the planned reception point and those who are accommodated by relatives. “, underlined to AFP a spokesman for the firefighters.
Fire in progress since the afternoon
The fire started around 4 p.m., in the place called “Bastide du bois”, in the sector of the municipalities of Villeneuve and Niozelles in an area of one hundred meters of elevation composed half of conifers and mixed forest, according to the prefecture. Significant air resources were immediately mobilized, with 8 water bombers (6 Canadairs and 2 Dash) and a heavy helicopter, to slow the progression of the fire before nightfall.
On the ground, some 300 firefighters were dispatched to the spot from the barracks of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence but also from Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône.
At the end of the day, the fire had covered 210 ha but was “practically progressing more”, according to a spokesperson for the firefighters, even if it remained active on its right side due to “the presence of a difficult resinous mass of access”.