In the municipalities of La Teste-de-Buch and Landiras, the flames ravaged 13,000 hectares of forest in less than a week and continue to progress.
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The firefighters may tire with each resumption of fire since the start of the morning, the black plume overlooks the dunes and is now observed for miles around. Behind the smoke screen, we can distinguish the ballet from Canadians trying to tame flames several meters high which have reached the edge of the ocean south of the Teste-de-Buch, in Gironde. It is a little less than 4 p.m. on Sunday July 17, and from the crowded beach of the Moulleau, in Arcachon, the doubt is no longer allowed: the fire that ravages the forest is not controlled, and it redoubles Intensity.
At 6 p.m., eighty kilometers away, in the Landes forest on the Landiras side, Commander David Brunner Patrouille on the departmental 110 between the villages of Villandraut and Origne, in the middle of a crackling scary. “Disappointed”, he observes the flames nibble the trees from top to bottom, generating an opaque cloud in front of the sun that crushes the Gironde in more than 40 ° C. And under the effect of a wind that does not weaken, they progress quickly. The commander seizes his radio: “The fire is 200 meters [from Origne] and there are no means on the scene.” While asking for the redeployment of firefighters to protect the houses of the village, evacuated since Several days, another voice announces on the airworthy start of fire further in the forest. “It never stops, I have never experienced a fire like that,” admits Commander Brunner, a firefighter in the department for over thirty years.
On one side as on the other, the fire soldiers know that they are not at the end of their sorrows. Monday, reinforcements in staff, vehicles and Canada are expected to cope with the 44 ° C announced. These temperatures will only feed the two braziers that more than 1,200 firefighters have been trying in vain to contain for days. The flames ravaged 13,000 hectares of forests in less than a week and continue to progress. Very few buildings have been affected and no victim is to be deplored, but the firefighters anticipate a still very long fight against the elements.
The maritime pines characteristic of the large massifs of the department are full of resin and highly flammable. If we add to that the wind, the drought that has set up for months and the scorching temperatures, all the conditions are met to make Girondin forests a powder maker. “Two fires of this magnitude and this virulence at the same time on a department, it is a first in Gironde, and even in France”, underlines Fabienne Buccio, prefect of the department.
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