Two months after the fire which ravaged more than half of the state forest located south of Arcachon, the ONF is organized to harvest the valuable wood and consider the future.
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Sands spring the long roots of a maritime pine old in a hundred years old. Here, the fire was so powerful that the ground has melted, sinking on almost 50 centimeters. “This strain, we will keep it as a marker, to remind everyone what happened,” explains Cédric Bouchet, technician of the National Forest Office (ONF) within the Territorial Unit of Biscarosse (Landes). In mid-July, he was one of those who went to evacuate the site of the soaring dirty threatened by the flames, in the middle of the night. We had to wake up the sleeping vacationers in their motorhome, as well as the tourist in his hammock stretched a little away, which they could not have seen.
Two months later, the violence of the fire that traveled the Teste-de-Buch’s state forest (Gironde) can be read from the soil that is cable at the Roussie des Trees. A slaughter drops pines with blackened trunk, logs pile up along the slopes. In the middle of an already exposed plot remain only a few trees and a picnic table. The chairs of a restaurant lie at the foot of the dune which hides the ocean. “Before, there was an emblematic setting here of the massif, in the middle of the pines. But when everything has been cut and that you will feel like we are on the moon, do we really want to come back Eat here? “Asks Cédric Bouchet.
” Cancer that nibbles the forest “
While the sector between La Teste-de-Buch and Biscarosse is still closed to the public for security reasons, the ONF agents note the extent of the damage. A traumatic phase for the teams, tested by an extraordinary summer. “In January 2009, when you get up in the morning after the storm [Klaus, who raged in the South West], you say to yourself:” It’s settled, everything is on the ground, “recalls Eric Constantin, the director From the North-Aquitaine ONF Landes agency. Fire is like cancer that nibbles on the forest, you save a plot and, two hours later, there is nothing more … And now we start cleaning, It’s hard to see that. “
The work started on September 15. The site is colossal: out of the 2,000 hectares of state forest, more than half was burnt down. Not everything has burned; Here and there, green gaps testify to a jump of fire or a change of wind. But, according to the first estimates, some 360 hectares will have to be completely slaughtered, and nearly 300 partially. In total, 80,000 cubic meters of wood should be harvested by December 31, eight times the volume initially planned for the year. Thirty forest vehicles will work hard. “We harvest in one time what we should have collected in almost ten years,” insists Yann Rolland, the manager of the wood service.
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