“It can start again around us at any time” – Liberation

by time news

The mythical Breton forest is struggling with a fire that has taken away 400 hectares. 300 firefighters are on site, with reinforcements from all over France.

It is a magical forest that caught fire on the night of August 11. The mythical forest of Brocéliande, theater of the Arthurian legend, lost 400 hectares in forty-eight hours in a fire whose origin is yet to be determined. Here and there, above the trees, one can see narrow columns of white vapor shooting up to the sky, a sign that the hearths are sprinkled with water. If the fire is contained at the time of writing these lines, it is still not fixed, and new starts are to be feared. The vegetation, dried up by weeks of exceptional heat, could ignite at any second. “Look at the grass there. Everything is dry. The wind is turning and picking up again, we are constantly watching for emerging fires, we are treating the edges”, explains Jean-François Gouy, controller general and director of the Sdis (Departmental Fire and Rescue Service) of Morbihan. “We have been there since last Saturday and there have already been thirty fire starts. We work in extreme weather conditions. It can start around us at any time.

National solidarity

On the road to the locality of Tréhorenteuc, dozens of fire trucks from all over France parade without stopping to lend a hand to their colleagues, mostly volunteer firefighters: Côte d’Or, Bas-Rhin, Ile- de-France, Loire-Atlantique, Normandy… 300 firefighters are mobilized with 120 vehicles to put out the flames. “The two Swedish planes that came to our aid are suitable for small fires, continues Jean-François Gouy, who improvised a press briefing at 3 p.m. today, but we are already very happy to be able to benefit from two Dash [des avions bombardier d’eau, ndlr] fFrench, while there are fires everywhere in France. Water from the communal ponds is pumped night and day and transported by 4,000 liter trucks into the forest. If the operational response seems to satisfy the firefighters, the weather is less cooperative: only 4 millimeters of rain are expected tomorrow, a derisory amount compared to the importance of the flames.

Evacuees waiting

No injuries have been recorded to date, but a cottage, the Moulin de Rohan, was completely consumed by the flames. The nuns of La Joie-Notre-Dame had to evacuate their abbey. In all, 150 people left their homes urgently on Thursday night, awakened around 2 a.m. by firefighters who invited them to join the town hall of Campénéac, where they were then taken to the multipurpose hall.

Pierre Noël was one of the evacuees. Assistant to the works and town planning of the town hall of Campénéac, he helped the firefighters to knock on the doors of the houses of the hamlets of the area to convince the inhabitants to leave their house: “Most people reacted well. Some had already been awakened by the smell of burning which was very persistent. Some old people were scared…” Once at the multi-purpose hall, a team of volunteers did what was necessary to provide them with beds, blankets and food. Solidarity has also been organized among civilians, where farmers lend their tank trucks to firefighters. The baker in Campénéac, the neighboring village, provided the firefighters with sandwiches and pastries. And all the evacuees were housed with residents or in hotels while waiting to return to their homes.

“The firefighters are holding on but are tired, continues Jean-François Gouy. Forest fires teach us humility. But we hope to have the situation under control tomorrow,” concludes the director of Sdis Morbihan.

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