2023-08-01 14:22:38
Barely 400 hectares burned in July in France, according to Effis. CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
If large fires ravaged southern Europe at the end of July, France was spared. The area burned in 2023 is however well above average, the fault of an early start to the season this winter.
Rhodes, Sicily, Corfu… The impressive images of the fires that ravaged Greece and Italy at the end of July made the rounds of the European media. An exceptional fire season, fueled by record temperatures: the 40°C were exceeded for several days in the two countries, which were suffocating under a dome of heat. In July, more than 52,000 hectares burned in Italy, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), which lists fires of more than 30 hectares, more than double the average between 2006 and 2022.
In Greece, according to Copernicus, CO2 emissions from fires reached one megaton between July 1 and July 25, i.e. “almost double the July 2007 record“, indicates the European program. “The temperatures were so high that all the conditions were met for a fire to develop“, points out Anthony Collin, research professor at the University of Lorraine, fire specialist.
Read also“We had to walk 7 km, people were screaming”: a French tourist recounts the chaos of the evacuation of Rhodes
In France, the impact of the fires of 2022
In France however, largely tested by megafires in 2022, in particular in Gironde, the beginning of summer was relatively calm. Effis only lists 400 hectares of burns in July – against 3000 on average between 2006 and 2022 -, to which must be added a multitude of small outbreaks of fire, quickly circumscribed and not counted because less than 30 hectares. By way of comparison, in Gironde alone, 30,000 hectares had gone up in smoke in 2022, according to the prefecture.
«We were very worried from June because the Mediterranean arc has been very dry for a year, but rains in June delayed the start of the season“, explains Sébastien Lahaye, former firefighter and director of the Warucene company. The big fires of 2022 also have an effect, adds Anthony Collin. “The fire always passes through more or less the same places, so after a big year, part of the plant mass has disappeared.»
Not to mention that the megafires of last year made an impression and probably led some French people to “be more careful», in particular by not throwing away their cigarette butts. Authorities are alsomuch more vigilant and mobilize more resources to intervene quickly.
Despite a calm month of July, the number of hectares burned in France in 2023 is well above the average, at 21,000 compared to 9,000 between 2006 and 2022. The fault is an early start to the season in February. “We had a very severe winter drought, recalls Sébastien Lahaye. The situation in March in the Pyrénées-Orientales was the same as in August!Between the end of January and the end of February, France had experienced a record 32 consecutive days “without significant rain“, according to Meteo France. Despite the respite at the start of summer, we must not relax our vigilance, pleads Sébastien Lahaye: “July has already been a little drier than June, and we can’t say what August will be like.»
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