A fire that burned 800 hectares of vegetation near Montpellier has been contained, but firefighters remain vigilant in a drought-stricken France and a still high fire risk.
800 to 900 hectares burned
The approximately 650 firefighters mobilized continued their work on the ground all night, "
in difficult conditions since without air support
", underlined Jérôme Bonnafoux.
The areas burned since the double start of fire in the town of Gignac late Tuesday morning are of the order of "
800 to 900 hectares
", according to the spokesperson for the firefighters.
On Wednesday morning, the three water bomber planes of the Hérault firefighters resumed their flights to put out the fire that broke out the day before.
Two departures of fires, 1.5 km apart, broke out on Tuesday in the municipalities of Saint-Bauzille-de-la-Sylve, Gignac and Aumelas, before joining, in a difficult to access and sparsely populated area made up of garrigue, holm oaks and vines.
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“
No casualties are to be deplored
” and “
no damage
” observed on the buildings, said Tuesday evening during a press briefing the commander of the relief operations, Colonel Sylvain Besson.
Some 280 people were the subject of a preventive evacuation in the town of Aumelas and fifty people found refuge in a village hall in the neighboring town of Vendémian, said the prefecture.
"
We could see on the hill that the fire was progressing, then after we went home because the air was starting to be a little stuffy and it stung the eyes
", testified Stéphanie Gauthier, resident of the village of Aumelas, evacuated for at night by the gendarmes and questioned by AFP-TV.
Intensification of fires
This new fire comes a few days after the two “
non-standard
” fires which ravaged nearly 21,000 hectares of forest in Gironde for twelve days and led to the evacuation of some 36,000 people.
In this department of western France, some 500 firefighters are still on site to deal with "
the edges and hot spots
", probably for weeks to come, Thomas Couturier, spokesman for the firefighters of the Gironde.
If summers are dry in the South, with global warming, the intensity of these episodes of drought is likely to increase further, according to UN climate experts.
In France, with global warming, "
the activity (of the fires) will intensify in the areas where it is already strong, in the South-East
", underlined Jean-Luc Dupuy, expert at the National Institute of research for agriculture, food and the environment (Inrae) at the end of June.
Read alsoClimate: increasingly frequent and intense fires in the forest
The risk of fire is maximum in France after a wave of heat wave.
Ninety departments out of 96, a "
record
", are subject to restrictions on the use of water on Tuesday.
The forest fires that have raged in Europe in recent weeks, particularly in the west of the continent hit by heat waves, have already affected more area than during the whole of 2021, according to the European specialized monitoring service.