Since Tuesday 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, 300 supported firefighters from Canada, Dash and Bombardier d’Eau helicopters are fighting against a virulent resumption of flames in this forest sector near the already disaster area of Landiras.
Le Monde with AFP
The situation is deemed “very unfavorable” by firefighters in Hostens and Saint-Magne, in southern Gironde, where pills of fires from the gigantic fire in Landiras in July, ravaged on Tuesday August 9 1,000 ha of pine , requiring the evacuation as a precaution of 3,500 people in this forest sector, according to the prefecture.
These preventive evacuations concern, at this stage, the towns of the municipalities of Saint-Magne and Hostens and a district of Belin-Béliet, announced the prefecture of Gironde in a tweet, which has increased its rise Assessment at “1,000 hectares of (pines) burned at 11:30 pm”, against 400 announced at 10:00 pm. The municipality of Hostens announced for its part on its facebook account a” total evacuation order of the village “, with a” possibility of refuge on the Bellin-Béliet holiday rooms “.
They are 300 firefighters to work in the field, supported by Canada, Dash and Bombardier de water helicopters. “The situation is very unfavorable. We maintain all the means available on the ground for the whole night, with many defenses of sensitive points to come,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Mendousse, communications officer at the departmental fire service and rescue (SDIS) of the Gironde.
Firefighters notably use “tactical lights” to create buffer zones and stop the advance of fire. During the operations, “a truck and three light vehicles were destroyed but no firefighter was injured,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse. “We see a very black smoke, 2 or 3 km from the village,” testified to the France-Presse agency in the afternoon Pascal Bizzari, municipal councilor of Hostens, commune of 1,300 inhabitants on the border With the Landes.
Landiras fire still not “mastered” to date
These covers of fire in Saint-Magne and Hostens noted around 1:00 pm, “thanks to unfavorable weather conditions”, according to the Gironde prefecture, are around twenty kilometers from Landiras, the epicenter of the gigantic fire which swallowed up nearly 14,000 ha of forest in July and which is still not “controlled” to date.
“These are hot spots that reactivated in the early afternoon, during the hottest hours of the day,” said the SDIS in the afternoon in the agency Gironde, describing a “fairly fast fire” fueled by hot winds. North of Landiras, in Cabanac, another resumption of fire at 3:00 p.m. taken care of by 80 firefighters and airlines destroyed 20 hectares of forest but this fire “no longer progresses” Tuesday evening, according to the SDIS Gironde
The situation is also “favorable” and the fire “fixed” in Sainte-Hélène in Médoc, where 15 ha of forest left for smoke Tuesday afternoon around 3:45 p.m., mobilizing a hundred firefighters and airlines. With the return this week of hot weather in Gironde placed in orange heat wave, firefighters had to treat for this “difficult day” of Tuesday no less than “10 forest fires (…) with surfaces ranging from a few thousand m2 in several hectares “, throughout the department, underlined Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendousse.
“We have called on all of our care and on-call staff and reserve staff,” he added. The Gironde prefecture has activated a departmental operational center (COD).