The fire of an exceptional magnitude which has traveled 17,000 hectares of garrigue and resinous in the Aude was fixed Thursday at the end of the day, announced the prefecture. It has been the worst fire for at least 50 years in the French Mediterranean, according to a government database listing forest fires since 1973.
During the day, the objective was “to set the fire during the day,” Colonel Christophe Magny, chief of the Aude firefighters, head of operations, told AFP, something now done.
Leaving Tuesday afternoon of the village of Ribaute, between Carcassonne and Narbonne, the biggest fire in summer in France ravaged 17,000 hectares of vegetation and pine forest, including 13,000 burned according to civil security. He also destroyed or damaged 36 dwellings and burned around forty vehicles, according to the provisional assessment of the prefecture.
“Alone in the world”
In Villesèque-des-Corbières, surrounded by the flames on Wednesday, the inhabitants struggled to believe in what they experienced. “We were surrounded by flames from everywhere, which arrived from the left, from the right, from behind. We were surrounded and we were alone in the world. Without the firefighters, we were screwed up, ”says Bruno Zubieta, first assistant to the town hall with emotion, with emotion.
In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, a 65-year-old lady who refused to leave her house was found dead on Wednesday at her home devastated by the flames. The prefecture also counted 13 injured: two hospitalized inhabitants, including a seriously burned, and eleven firefighters, one of whom suffers from a head trauma, according to the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
In this commune, the most affected by the fire, thick smoke emerges Thursday from the hills of pines overlooking the vineyards where the dry herbs ignited, noted an AFP journalist.
The air system of four Canadair and three water bomber helicopters was mobilized “all day”, to treat the fire still active in various sectors, specify the firefighters of the department.
“We are in a military struggle strategy and at all times, the enemy must be killed as soon as he takes out his head,” said Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for the National Federation of French firefighters on RMC, during the day.
This is the biggest fire in summer in France, unprecedented for at least 50 years in the French Mediterranean, according to a government database listing forest fires since 1973.
Prime Minister François Bayrou had described the fire as a “unprecedented catastrophe”, believing that the episode was “linked to” global warming “and” drought “.
