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“
You have to be lucid and understand that the environment is changing.
There is cause for concern on a human scale
.”
The day after the fire that destroyed 45 hectares of brushwood on the Poteau military camp in Captieux on Thursday, Landes captain Jean-Baptiste Kane, in charge of the intervention, recognizes this.
While three consecutive days of rain did not prevent the fire from taking hold, the firefighters "
are preparing, because it is likely to happen more and more frequently
".
It was a shooting exercise that caused the spark on the ground, straddling the Gironde and the Landes.
On the brushy and wet ground, the fire spread so quickly that the Air Force firefighters, assigned to the barracks, were unable to control it on their own.
Called in as reinforcements in accordance with the protocol, the fire soldiers of the Sdis from the Landes and the Gironde discovered on their arrival flames 2.5 meters high which extended over a perimeter of one kilometer long and 500 meters wide. .
And the situation was complex: on this minefield for the exercises simulating the war, the firefighters had to act in the wake of a soldier to know where to put their feet.
Read alsoGironde: 40% of fire trucks still under repair after this summer's fires
Despite "
the droplets
" which fell, "
the curtain of fire, pushed by the wind, advanced without burning the ground in depth
", describes Captain Jean-Baptiste Kane.
A chance, because in this meadow, the twigs, more numerous than the trees, burn for less time.
In particular thanks to the properly maintained tracks, the fire was extinguished in two hours by the three forest fire units dispatched to the scene.
The damage is minimal compared to its scale.
“
It is an uninhabited area planned for exercises and even burning, because it happens that firefighters train there
”, specifies the one who directed for the first time the operations on a prairie fire.
