Historic damage. Two fires, started after “16 fire starts” almost “simultaneous”, ravaged 400 ha of forest this Thursday in the south of Charente, said the prefecture.
Shortly before midnight, the main fire, which burned 350 ha in Courgeac, a town 30 km south of Angoulême, had “stopped its progression” but was “not strictly speaking fixed”, explained the prefect of Charente, Martine Clavel, during a press briefing.
The fire also affected the neighboring town of Nonac, ravaging 50 ha of pines and hardwoods before being fixed in the evening.
The preferred arsonist trail
Four Canadair, three Dash and two helicopters and nearly 580 firefighters were mobilized during the day, according to the prefecture. Nearly 500 of them will remain mobilized on Friday to “prevent the fire from starting again”, said the prefecture.
Nearly forty people were evacuated from the area and the village of Courgeac was “confined following the significant smoke that emerges from these fires”. According to the regional newspaper Charente Libre, the area burned by these two hearths constitutes “the biggest fire that the Charente has known in its history”.
The authorities identified during the afternoon a total of 16 “almost simultaneous” fire starts in five neighboring towns along the D24 road, and favored the trail of an arsonist, who was still wanted Thursday evening.