IA new fire is raging near the city of Bordeaux. More than 3,500 hectares of land have been burned in the fire in southern Médoc so far. The responsible prefecture in the French department of Gironde announced on Wednesday that strong winds had hampered the extinguishing work. The fire spread to another 500 hectares during the night. 920 firefighters battle the flames. Five firefighting aircraft and several helicopters are in use.
The fire broke out on Monday near the village of Saumos. 840 residents had to leave their homes. They were housed in emergency shelters. Four houses have burned down so far. It is being investigated for arson. The source of the fire is not far from the popular seaside resort of Lacanau on the Atlantic coast. Lacanau Mayor Laurent Peyrondet (modem) said the forest was extremely parched after weeks of drought. “He’s burning like straw,” the mayor said on the radio. At the beginning of the week, new heat records were measured in Bordeaux. Temperatures rose to 39 degrees Celsius. Due to the heat and drought, the fire spread quickly. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, the area affected by the fire tripled.
“We are angry because we know that the fire was probably caused by arson,” said Gironde MP Grégoire de Fournas. The winemaker sits in the National Assembly for the Rassemblement National. He called for higher penalties for arsonists and a minimum sentence of ten years. On August 26, a 19-year-old student who worked in the volunteer fire department was arrested in his constituency. He has confessed and is said to have set 31 fires in the Gironde in the summer alone. The arrest of the suspected arsonist has caused a stir as several members of the young man’s family are firefighters. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
Two major fires in Landiras and La Teste burned more than 20,000 hectares of land near Bordeaux in the summer, including old growth pine forest near the Pyla dune on the Atlantic coast. The cost of the extinguishing work amounted to 750,000 to one million euros per day, as the spokesman for the fire brigade, Eric Brocardi, told the newspaper “Le Parisien”. More than 2000 firefighters were deployed. Hundreds of firefighters from Germany also helped fight the fire. Tourism recorded a significant decline. President Emmanuel Macron came to the forest fire front in the Gironde in July and paid tribute to the firefighters. He promised that the burnt pine forests would be reforested. In addition, fire prevention is to be improved.
Many residents of the region fear that catastrophic summers with little rainfall and high temperatures could repeat themselves. The chairman of the umbrella organization of climate and nature conservation associations Sepanso in the Gironde, Philippe Barbedienne, warned that fires are spreading faster and faster due to climate change. “During reforestation, trees that quickly catch fire should not be planted again,” Barbedienne demanded.