Fires in Gironde: 10 football pitches burned per minute!

The fire that had ravaged the Landes forest in the Landiras sector, in Gironde, last July, has started again. In a particularly virulent manner. In less than 24 hours, 6,000 hectares went up in smoke. A figure qualified as historic.

On July 12, 2022, a Forest fire declared itself in the Landes forest. In Gironde. On the side of Landiras. Firefighters had struggled for more than a week to bring it under control. Some 15,000 hectares of pines had finally gone up in smoke. But it had never been totally extinguished.

Several times of fire minor cases had since been reported. And yesterday, Tuesday August 9, at the very beginning of the afternoon, the fire in the Landes forest unfortunately violently returned. In favor, according to the firefighters, of “very unfavorable” weather conditions. Between extreme drought of theair and vegetation, wave of heat and wind. In the peat, hot spots reactivated. Even if some of the 40 fire starts recorded could turn out to be the work of arsonists.

A historic fire

During the night, the fire destroyed 6,000 hectares of forest. “A historically high area”some commented. “The equivalent of ten soccer fields that disappear every minutesay the others.

Faced with the extraordinary virulence of this forest fire – which has now overflowed into the neighboring department of Landes – preventive evacuations were immediately ordered. Some 6,000 people left their homes overnight or this morning. A first assessment reported this morning of 16 houses destroyed by flames. Many roads have been cut. The A63 motorway, which connects Bordeaux to Arcachon, is now also partially cut off in both directions of traffic.

All firefighters – around 1,000 at the start of the afternoon – and support personnel are mobilized to protect, as a priority now, human lives. Exhaustion – physical and psychological – begins to threaten…