Fight fires as much as possible. This is the mission that the government has embarked on for this summer 2023, after a record 2022 season marked by more than 72,000 ha of burned forests.
Last October, Emmanuel Macron announced that he wanted to set up forest weather, on the model of heatwave alerts, to fight against this scourge. This was done eight months later, with the launch this Thursday, June 1, of this new device made to prevent fires.
See alsoFires: is the France ready to face next summer's forest fires?
This map published by Météo France will be released daily until the end of September to indicate the level of fire danger.
It "will be in the form of a level of risk per department, on a scale of four levels (green for the lowest, yellow, orange and red for the highest)", details on its website the government, which adds that prevention messages will accompany the highest levels of risk.
🔥🌳Faced with the risks of #FeuxDeForêt, from June 1, 2023, @meteofrance will publish a daily forest weather.
➡️A tool to inform the French about fire risks, with 4 levels of danger 🟢🟡🟠🔴 and the situation by department.
👉https://t.co/9JU6uYBmfF pic.twitter.com/iu1qCfaRFu
— Indre Fire Brigade (@pompiers36) May 25, 2023
It will inform citizens as well as rescue forces about the risks "forest massif by forest massif", confided Christophe Béchu. The Minister of Ecological Transition had indicated that the latter will have a more detailed degree of information to help Civil Security "to preposition the devices and program the emergency columns".
The fourth weather forecast proposed by Météo-France
Thanks to the information on the various terrains and the devices and personnel transferred upstream to the risk areas, the authorities hope to be able to contain and control forest fires more quickly.
To establish its map, Météo France will be based on rain, humidity, air temperature, wind strength or the dry state of vegetation, these weather conditions that have "a force influence on the sensitivity of vegetation to fire and on the spread once the fire is declared," explains the public service website.
The purpose of this device is also to prevent and allow citizens to adjust their behavior according to the weather, "so that they adopt the right reflexes to avoid the start of fires, especially in identified sensitive areas", because nine out of ten fires are of human origin and most are triggered by carelessness, underlines the government website.
These forecasts will be available on the Météo-France website, which already offers beach weather, marine weather and mountain weather. On the other hand, forest weather will not provide information on ongoing fires.