While firefighters are still hard at work trying to put out the violent fire that broke out on Saturday in the Canjuers military camp (Var) after an artillery exercise, the Marseille military prosecutor's office seized of an investigation, Var-Matin learned on Monday from a judicial source.
The investigations entrusted to the gendarmerie should in particular relate to the security conditions in which the military maneuvers were carried out that day, specifies the regional newspaper.
The fire, which broke out on Saturday inside this vast French army training camp following artillery fire, was still active on Sunday evening and burned some 700 ha of vegetation, we learned from the firefighters.
“Big recovery” on Sunday
Saturday evening, the fire was "almost fixed", that is to say that it was no longer advancing, had indicated the prefecture of Var, but Sunday afternoon "we witnessed a big recovery" , said Var fire captain Stéphane Nepper on Sunday evening.
Some 100 additional hectares of grass were burned on Sunday afternoon and were "being treated" thanks in particular to seven water bomber planes, said around 8 p.m. the communication department of the Var firefighters.
#Canjuers |
More than 260 #firefighters from @SDIS83 reinforced by colleagues from @sdis_06, @Pompiers04 and soldiers still engaged on the 🔥.
Supported by the aerial means of @SecCivileFrance, #Canadairs and #Dash, hundreds of hectares are still under threat.
pic.twitter.com/1irpjqjFdB
– Firefighters of France (@PompiersFR) June 19, 2022
Since Saturday, around 300 firefighters have been mobilized, some from neighboring departments, to put out the flames – confined within the camp grounds – and 85 vehicles have been deployed.
Isolated, the military complex of Canjuers is located tens of kilometers from homes.
Note that the Var department was not part of the areas placed in heat wave vigilance on Saturday, at the time of the shooting, but had two municipalities in drought crisis and 96 in drought alert and the temperatures were particularly high.
However, the risk of fire was qualified as “moderate”.
A similar event had already occurred in July 2009 in the south of France.
At the gates of Marseille, a huge fire caused by training shots with tracer bullets - fitted with a pyrotechnic device - broke out in the military camp of Carpiagne, above the creeks.
The fire, which had covered some 1,300 ha, had spread in the hills overlooking the second city of France, and had only been contained after three days, causing two injuries.
The authorities had denounced the "imbecility of the gesture" of the soldiers.
A legionnaire who ordered the shootings was given a six-month suspended prison sentence in 2015.