Three bedrooms, a small garden, and a dream location at the foot of the Dune du Pilat. For more than ten years, Kate and Enrico lived quietly in their “unpretentious” house, located just 20 meters from the grocery store they had run since 2015, in the heart of Pyla Camping. In this haven of peace in Gironde, on the edge of the Arcachon basin, the couple spent their summers serving customers, offering them roast chicken and fresh bread, while organizing almost every evening dinners with friends or evenings with the children and their friends. “Life was simple: we woke up happy, five minutes from our workplace, and it was the house of happiness”, summarizes Kate. But a few weeks ago, this peaceful balance came to an end. On July 12, in the middle of the night, the hundreds of campsite customers had to be evacuated urgently by the firefighters: in a few hours, a huge fire came dangerously close to the tents and bungalows, all equipped with gas cylinders. In a few days, it will destroy 20,800 hectares of forest, forcing more than 36,000 people from their homes in the region.
In a hurry, Kate and Enrico are first lodged for one night a few kilometers from the campsite, with a friend of the family. Then a nephew offers them to move into his house in Bordeaux for a few weeks: they will have to give up their place to tenants by the end of August. “At first, we didn’t think we would stay. We thought the campsite would be spared,” says Enrico, who then hopes to have been evacuated only as a precaution. But on July 18, the man witnessed the carnage live, via the images from the surveillance cameras of his grocery store. “I first saw the smoke outside, then the cameras went out. And I understood that everything had been wiped off the map.” The campsite and the “house of happiness” were reduced to ashes, as well as the identity papers, the vital cards, the first drawings of the children, the photos, the family jewels and the furniture which were there. From the grocery store, there are only a few charred shelves, where you can guess a dozen tins spared by the fire. “We have nothing left. We were just able to take a toothbrush, flip-flops and Bermuda shorts before leaving… And in two weeks, we don’t even know where we’ll be sleeping,” breathes Enrico.
Like dozens of residents who are victims of the fires that have broken out all over France since the start of the summer, this fifty-year-old is now preparing for “the aftermath”. Insurance, compensation, housing, trauma related to fire… “You have to manage everything as quickly as possible, while mourning your life before,” he comments, tired. For the moment, the couple is on partial unemployment, and does not know if their activity will resume one day. Despite the administrative support of the town hall and the solidarity of friends, the questions are multiplying. “The owner is thinking about rebuilding the campsite, but what will happen in the meantime? Who will hire us? And who will agree, without work, to rent us an apartment? Where will we live in September? ?”. For the moment, the former managers of the convenience store are anxiously awaiting the results of their insurance expert’s report. But Enrico has few hopes. “We have no certainty about the amount we will receive, neither for groceries nor for the house. The ceiling for the interior of our home is 55,000 euros… For a lifetime, it’s nothing”.
“We will not have a euro”
“For the victims, it is very difficult: it is often when a tragedy takes place that we realize the details of the insurance contract. However, there are victims who are underinsured, badly built contracts, guarantee ceilings which are not sufficient for such damage, and a whole host of clauses which do not always make it possible to mobilize these guarantees: have you cleared your plot of land properly, for example? compared to the distance with your neighbours?”, warns Fabrice Barthélémy, disaster expert in Bordeaux and director of the Salomon Institute, an association specializing in risk assessment. After the Teste-de-Buch fires, the man took part in several information meetings and advice workshops in the region, in order to best guide the victims. “Once the claim and all the damage has been declared, each case is different. The most difficult thing is to verify the applicability of the guarantees provided for in the contract. In the event of business interruption, for example, some insured can only be compensated if they can restart their activity… Which is not always possible. There will certainly be holes in the racket: victims could find themselves with nothing, or almost nothing”.
Sébastien knows all too well these famous insurance “details”, against which he can do nothing. “I had always trusted, thinking that I would be taken care of no matter what. But in fact, I believe that it is not possible to restart lower than us”, he says, disappointed. . On July 31, this young father lost his house and his timber business, located between the municipalities of Aubais and Guallagues-le-Montueux, in the Gard. Around 3:30 p.m., the gendarmerie asked him to evacuate the premises in the face of a gigantic fire, which will burn more than 350 hectares of scrubland in a few hours. “We had five minutes to leave, save our six-year-old daughter and a few animals. It went faster than a galloping horse: in 18 minutes, the house had completely burned down.” In the rubble, Sébastien and his companion will only find tweezers. Six goats and 35 hens cared for by the couple were burned in the fire, as were 240,000 euros worth of wood, a collection of old watches, 22,000 euros worth of surveillance cameras… And all their belongings, furniture or souvenirs. “In all, I estimate our material losses at at least 600,000 euros. But for the moment, the insurance is telling us about compensation of 50,000 euros maximum for the interior of the house. And on the operating part, machines, equipment, we won’t have a euro. Because they don’t take care of everything, and we didn’t have the right clauses”, he summarizes.
Without housing, no papers, or even “spare underwear”, the couple first lived in a converted van bought the previous year, which they hastily managed to save from the flames. Around them, neighbors and elected officials mobilized: a collection of clothes was organized in a theater in the city, and a group of local merchants created an online kitty, which now amounts to more than 25 000 euros. A resident of the village has even sold them, “for almost nothing”, a mobile home in which they are trying to regain some semblance of normality on their old land. “But as I speak to you, my wife is forced to cook in the metal goat house which resisted the flames”, explains Sébastien, who is now awaiting the precise announcement of the compensation to which he will be entitled by his insurance. .
“You never redeem a life for pleasure”
“We are waiting for that, for the expert to pass. To find out how high we will be reimbursed, and especially when”, indicates for his part Alexandre, self-employed carpenter. With his companion Céline, the man had just completed the renovation of an old barn, in Belin-Béliet, in Gironde. But the huge fires that ravaged 7,400 hectares of land in the Hostens sector last week hit the home hard. “We had to be evacuated, and we have since been living with my in-laws. We may be able to access an addiction with friends in a few days, but it’s not sure”, explains Alexandre, who is trying to organize day to day. The day after the tragedy, an insurance expert came to pick him up, to accompany him to town, with Céline, to buy new clothes. “Suffice to say that once I entered the first store, I just wanted to get out of it as quickly as possible. You never buy a life for pleasure”.
Since then, his uncle has also created a support kitty on the Internet, which has almost reached 10,000 euros. In support of the disaster victims, the town hall of the town has also set up a call for donations: this Wednesday, August 17, more than 8,500 euros had already been collected. The mayor of Belin-Béliet, Cyrille Declercq, has also worked with the department to offer around fifteen possible accommodations to the eight families whose homes were destroyed by the fires. “And we are in the process of positioning ourselves with the insurance companies so that they can react as quickly as possible, with kindness and attention”, blows the mayor, determined to support his constituents. Alexandre is categorical. Despite the fire and the risk of fires that could set in in the years to come, it is here that he intends to rebuild. “It’s my home. I intend to move forward.”