ANNECY/MÉGEVETTE Serge Taboulot stands in the middle of a lush mountain forest at an altitude of 800 meters. He points to a stream that brings water up from the slopes of the French Alps.
A happily flowing stream gives the false impression that there is enough water.
At the end of July, heavy rains have just washed over the area. The thought of forest fires seems far away in the slush of rot under your shoes.
The drought is still not far away.
– After the rains, the forest is wet for a while, but if it is hot for a long time in August, the situation may become critical here as well, says Taboulot.
Serge Taboulot heads the Institut des risques majeurs association, which disseminates information about environmental risks to authorities and the general public.
While many other Mediterranean countries have suffered from bad forest fires in recent weeks, France has so far survived with little. The fire areas in southern France and Corsica have remained under control.
However, summer is only at the beginning when it comes to fires. August is typically the hottest summer month, which brings with it more and bigger forest fires.
Last year in France, record-breaking fires destroyed the forest south of the city of Bordeaux, for example. According to the researchers, it was the first concrete indication that the drought, which is becoming more common due to climate change, brings the risk of large forest fires to the northern regions of France as well.
Not only the picturesque hills of Provence are at risk, but soon also the oaks of Brittany and the forests of the Alpine slopes.
“Last year was a wake-up call for us”
The fire rescue operations of the Haute-Savoie region, located in the eastern part of France near Switzerland and Italy, are managed from the center in Annecy.
Until now, the forest fires in the area have been small and usually easily contained. Soon, however, the situation will be different. The risk of large fires increases all the time in the mountains, says an expert in mountain forest firefighting.
– Last year was a wake-up call for us. Large forest fires may also occur in areas where they have not traditionally occurred, Bernard Gay says.
Forests that are at risk have already been felled in various parts of France to contain fires, and supplies and water storages have been placed. Fire fighting has been practiced together with independent fire brigades and other authorities. Forest roads have been strengthened to carry heavy fire engines.
Gay presents a new weather service that allows the risk of forest fires to be monitored in real time. The service of the French Meteorological Institute also takes into account human movements and other risk factors.
People are a risk because nine out of ten fires are started by people either by accident or on purpose. Cigarette butts, barbecuing and even a glass bottle left on the ground can ignite large forest fires.
Extinguishing dense mountain forests is difficult
Bernard Gay says that fire departments talk about the three-30 rule. The risk of forest fire is high if the temperature is above 30 degrees, the humidity is below 30 percent and the wind speed is above 30 kilometers per hour.
– I add to this the slope of the terrain, more than 30 degrees, because steep slopes in the mountains create their own additional risk. The fire spreads rapidly upwards, Gay explains.
There are dense forests in the mountains, which are particularly difficult to extinguish because it is difficult to get equipment to the fire scene. The most important tool is helicopters, which operate in the mountains more nimbly than firefighting planes.
The equipment is renewed, and water reservoirs are built on the terrain. There are also water reservoirs that can be quickly set up like swimming pools, which can be dropped near the fire area if necessary.
Education is also essential.
– Fighting forest fires is now one area of specialization in rescue training. In the future, it will probably have to be included in basic training, because forest fires will become so common, says Bernard Gay.
Climate change is already visible in the mountain forest
In France, the forecast for this year is moderately comforting. The terrain is not as dry and fire-prone as it was at this time last year.
Although heat records have been broken in France as well and the Finnish Meteorological Institute promises that the end of summer will be clearly hotter than usual, the terrain is moderately humid almost everywhere in France. There is also enough groundwater, although it is lower than usual in many areas.
Since 2000, there have been clearly more hot seasons in France every year. In the past, there were hot spells about once every five years. In the south of France, the definition of heat is that the temperature is at least 36 degrees during the day and the mercury does not drop below 24 degrees at night.
Warming in mountain areas is twice as fast as in the rest of France.
In the forest on the slopes of the Alps in Upper Savoie, you can clearly see suffering spruces that look dry.
Coniferous trees do not withstand long periods of drought badly, explains Serge Taboulot of the environmental association. The number of pests increases, and when the trees die, they no longer bind the soil.
– Then, in addition to fires, landslides are a threat, especially when there are more heavy rains as weather phenomena become more extreme.
According to Taboulot, people do not understand the ongoing change well enough.
The heat is enjoyed, but because the changes happen slowly and are small for now, no attention is paid to them, regrets Taboulot.
The number and extent of forest fires have been decreasing in France thanks to better extinguishing measures, better monitoring and more precise fire management.
Between 1980 and 1999, the average number of forest fires was 5,252 per year. In the 1980s, an average of 42,360 hectares of forest burned annually.
Between 2015 and 2019, there have been an average of 2,671 fires and an average of 7,570 hectares of burned forest area.
Last year 2022 broke the downward trend: there were 19,711 recorded forest fires and more than 72,000 hectares of land burned.
This year, by the end of May, there are already more than 20,000 hectares of burnt area.
According to forecasts, by 2050, the amount of annual burnt area will increase by 80 percent from the current level. At that time, more than half of France’s forests are high-risk areas.
While most of the fires are now in August, there will be forest fires from June to October in the future, and fires are also expected to occur in winter.