Since the start of the fires that have ravaged 20,800 hectares for ten days, 36,750 inhabitants and holidaymakers had been forced to go urgently from the region.
Le Monde with AFP
Some 6,000 people were allowed to go home, Thursday July 21 in the evening, while the firefighters continued to treat the covers of the two fires in the process of being fixed, which ravaged 20,800 hectares of forest in Gironde , announced the authorities.
Since 5 p.m., 3,500 inhabitants of part of the Pyla-sur-Mer district, residing north of the departmental 218, were authorized first to return to their respective dwellings. At the end of the day, this was the case of 2,500 inhabitants of a part of the municipalities of Cabanac-et-Villagrains, Budos and Saint-Magne.
“The authorities continue to study, sector by sector, these possibilities of reintegration according to the evolution of the situation”, Ensures the prefecture in A press release . Since the start of the fires ten days ago, 36,750 inhabitants and vacationers had been forced to bend a preventive luggage.
On the two fronts, the fire “no longer progresses” and “remains contained”, but “homes remain active, especially in the Usagère forest” of La Teste-de-Buch and “on 15 kilometers of edges on the South-West Zone “of the Brazier of Landiras.
“It’s less spectacular, but the fires are not fixed or off,” said New Aquitaine Fabienne Buccio’s prefect during a press briefing in the afternoon. “To reintegrate the populations, we still need a little patience, at least a few days,” she warned.
If the weather remains “favorable” for the night, Friday will be marked by a “change of wind sense, which is strengthened with a small increase in temperatures”, underlines, for its part, SDIS 33, Gironde’s departmental fire and rescue service, which did not have, on Thursday, “the certainty that a significant recovery will not restart the fire”.
The concentrations of suspended particles remaining “very high” in Gironde, the prefecture recommends, moreover, to reduce “by 20 kilometers per hour” the maximum speeds authorized on certain road axes of the department.
For its part, the Regional Health Agency of Nouvelle-Aquitaine has recommended “limiting the time spent” as well as “intense physical activities outdoors” and “closely monitor people at risk” in zones the most distant where fumes of forest fires arrive.