The situation is considered "
very unfavorable
" by firefighters in Hostens and Saint-Magne, in South Gironde, where renewed fires from the gigantic Landiras fire in July ravaged 1,000 ha of pines on Tuesday evening, requiring evacuation as a precaution. of 3,500 people in this forest sector, according to the prefecture.
These preventive evacuations concern, at this stage, the towns of the municipalities of Saint-Magne and Hostens and a district of Belin-Béliet, announced the prefecture of Gironde in a tweet, which reassessed its balance sheet upwards to “
1000 hectares of (pine) burnt at 11.30 p.m.
”, against 400 announced at 10 p.m.
The municipality of Hostens announced for its part on its Facebook account a "
total evacuation order of the village
", with a "
possibility of refuge in the village halls of Belin-Béliet
".
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Since Tuesday 1:00 p.m., 300 firefighters supported by Canadairs, Dash and water bomber helicopter have been fighting against a virulent resumption of flames in this forest sector close to the already disaster area of Landiras.
“
The situation is very unfavorable.
We are maintaining all the means available on the ground for the whole night, with many defenses of sensitive points to come
", underlined Lieutenant-Colonel Mendousse, communication officer at the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of the Gironde.
In particular, firefighters use “
tactical fires
” to create buffer zones and stop the advance of the fire.
During the operations, "
a truck and three light vehicles were destroyed but no firefighters were injured
," said Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse.
“
We see very black smoke, 2 or 3 km from the village
”, testified to AFP in the afternoon Pascal Bizzari, municipal councilor of Hostens, a town of 1,300 inhabitants on the border with the Landes.
“
Adverse weather conditions
”
These resumptions of fire in Saint-Magne and Hostens noted around 1:00 p.m., "
thanks to unfavorable weather conditions
", according to the prefecture of Gironde, are located about twenty kilometers from Landiras, the epicenter of the gigantic fire which engulfed nearly 14,000 ha of forest in July and which is still not "
under control
" to this day.
“
These are hot spots which reactivated at the beginning of the afternoon, at the hottest hours of the day
”, explained in the afternoon to AFP the Sdis de la Gironde, describing a “
fire quite fast
" fanned by hot winds.
North of Landiras, in Cabanac, another resumption of fire at 3:00 p.m. supported by 80 firefighters and aerial means destroyed 20 hectares of forest but this fire “
is no longer progressing
” Tuesday evening, according to Sdis Gironde.
The situation is also "
favorable
" and the fire "
fixed
" in Sainte-Hélène in the Médoc, where 15 hectares of forest went up in smoke on Tuesday afternoon around 3:45 p.m., mobilizing a hundred firefighters and air resources.
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With the return this week of high heat in Gironde placed in heat wave orange vigilance, the firefighters had to deal for this "
difficult day
" on Tuesday no less than "
10 forest fires (...) with areas ranging from a few thousand from m2 to several hectares
", over the whole of the department, underlined Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse.
“
We called on all of our on-call and on-call staff and reserve personnel
,” he added.
The Gironde prefecture has activated a departmental operational center (COD).
