“The earth is scorched everywhere, there are no more birds, no more insects, not a single song of cicadas and we only hear the sound of helicopters flying over this desolate landscape.
"Returning from an inspection tour in the heart of the national reserve of the Plaine des Maures, of which a third of the surface has been ravaged since Monday by fires in the Var, Concha Agéro has the voice quavering with emotion.
Deputy interregional director of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) in the Paca region, she already speaks imperfectly about this natural space considered by some inhabitants as "the Amazon of the Var".
“With its red earth, its landscapes of umbrella pines, centuries-old cork oaks, chestnut trees, its rocky slabs of pink-orange sandstone and its wetlands, we called it the Provençal savannah,” says Concha Agéro.
This plain is also home to 250 rather rare and protected wild species of flora and fauna.
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"With its mosaic of unique natural habitats, it is one of the richest reserves in France, a pearl of biodiversity", adds Marie-Claude Serra, the curator of the reserve.
Here bloom wild orchids, bats, snakes, golden eagles ... but also these superb ocellated lizards with green skin covered with pretty blue circles which display false airs of iguanas and can measure up to 80 cm long.
"An ecological disaster"
The plain of the Moors is above all the privileged refuge of Hermann's tortoises, the last specimens of wild tortoises to live in France. They are only found in the Var and Corsica. While walking this Tuesday morning in the heart of the charred and still smoking lands of the plain, Concha Agéro discovered three, "grilled on the spot". "One of them had tried to take refuge on the bank of a stream but the fire was faster and she did not survive," explains the manager of the OFB. We will try to mobilize to recover those who survived or were only injured. "
Marie-Claude Serra estimates that it will take at least three days to measure the exact extent of the damage. But she already evokes a long-term "ecological disaster". "The Mediterranean region is certainly adapted to drought and can even withstand fires that would occur every hundred years, but the recurrence of fires no longer leaves nature time to rebuild itself", sighs the curator. At least “3,500 ha of vegetation have burned, deplores Concha Agéro. It will take at least ten years to find the atypical landscapes of this exceptionally rich plain. "