The fire in Saumos (Gironde), a village located in the south of the Médoc, which has already destroyed nearly 1,800 ha since Monday, could be of criminal origin.
“No track is ruled out even if the criminal thesis is privileged”, indicates the parquet floor of Bordeaux.
A judicial inquiry has been opened into the origin of the fire.
"Additional investigations" are "impossible for the time being given the fire" which is raging, also notes the Bordeaux prosecutor's office.
The disaster is still in progress on Tuesday in the town of Saumos, between the seaside resort of Lacanau, on the Atlantic coast, and the Bordeaux conurbation.
Four houses have burned, as well as a few barns and vehicles, and around 540 people have been evacuated since Monday evening, in the town center of Saumos and hamlets in the neighboring town of Sainte-Hélène, according to the latest report from the authorities.
“I no longer have a home”
"The inhabitants cannot return home for the moment", declared Tuesday at the end of the morning the sub-prefect of Lesparre-Médoc, Fabrice Thibier, during a press briefing, explaining to fear a southerly wind which could spread the fire "to areas where there are sensitive points to defend".
“At first, we didn't want to evacuate, but when a gust of wind brought the flames back and I started to have embers everywhere, suddenly I preferred to evacuate.
There, I'm a little in shock, I no longer have a home, ”says a resident of Saumos.
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At the start of the afternoon, "all air resources were directed" towards a new start of fire in Vendays-Montalivet, a seaside resort 40 km to the north, where 75 hectares of forest had already burned the previous week. said the firefighters.
Reinforcements from neighboring departments and other regions brought the number of firefighters mobilized to nearly 700, supported by 200 vehicles and air resources: three Canadair, two Dash, a heavy water bomber helicopter and a light one.
Already huge fires
During a summer marked by a historic drought, major fires had already burned 30,000 hectares in July and August in Gironde, in La Teste-de-Buch, on the edge of the Arcachon basin, and in Landiras, in about forty kilometers south of Bordeaux in the heart of the Landes de Gascogne massif.
At the end of August, a 19-year-old student, volunteer firefighter in Gironde, was also indicted and imprisoned for "destruction by fire", suspected of 31 fire starts in the north of Médoc, about sixty kilometers north of Saumos .
Firefighters feared Monday because of a new heat wave, due to a rise of hot air from Morocco, according to Météo France.
Monthly temperature records, sometimes half a century old, have been broken in several municipalities.
The thermometer exceeded 40 degrees in places in the Landes and it was 37.5 ° C in Bordeaux, unheard of since 1987.