Firefighters continue to fight several fires in France on Saturday (13), especially in the southwest, waiting for storms and rain that will put an end to the heat wave that hits much of Europe.
In Portugal, the fire in the Serra da Estrela natural park, which burned 17,000 hectares, was declared “controlled”.
In southwestern France, the 40-kilometer line of fire in the Gironde and Landes departments near Bordeaux “has not advanced significantly. Firefighters are working on its perimeter,” police said in a statement.
Authorities have warned that it is premature to say the fire is under control. “We are still watching” because “although we cannot see large flames, the fire continues to burn the vegetation and the ground,” Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Mendousse, a spokesman for the Gironde firefighters, told AFP.
The weather service predicts thunderstorms and rain at night. The impact on the fires is difficult to predict, as instead of extinguishing the flames, it can fan them if accompanied by strong winds, Météo-France and the firefighters said.
On Sunday, the storms will spread to most of France and end the current heat wave in the country, a direct consequence, according to scientists, of the climate crisis.
In this 2022, they have already burned three times more hectares in France than the annual average of the last ten years.
The fire near Bordeaux started in July, the driest month in France since 1961, and destroyed 14,000 hectares and forced thousands of people to temporarily flee their homes.
Authorities suspect the latest resurgence of the fire near Bordeaux may have been arson. The flames burned about 7,400 hectares of pine trees this week.
– Entry into forests prohibited –
Advances against the fire in southwestern France allowed the reopening of the highway linking Bordeaux and Spain, after a 20-kilometer stretch had been closed since Wednesday.
Given the magnitude of the fires, France asked for the support of firefighters from European Union countries, such as Germany, Poland, Austria and Romania, who added more than 360 agents to the 1,000 French colleagues on the ground, in addition to tanker planes.
“Here we are all volunteers. We are trained and we want to help,” said Tone Neuhalfel, a 36-year-old German firefighter.
The fires also occur in the Jura region in the east of the country, an area unaccustomed to high temperatures where the fire destroyed 600 hectares of forest.
Further east, in the Bas-Rhin department, close to the German border, French police prevented cars, cyclists, hunters and fishermen from entering most of the forests. Only residents can pass.
“It is an extreme measure in an exceptional situation,” said Pierre Grandadam, president of the association of forest communes of the Alsace region.
In Brittany (northwest), the mythical forest of Brocéliande, a place of reference in the legend of King Arthur and the wizard Merlin, lost 400 hectares due to the fire, which this Saturday “was no longer advancing”, according to the city hall.
In many areas of the country, the traditional fireworks on August 15, on the occasion of the Catholic feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, were banned to avoid risks.
– Controlled fire in Portugal –
In Portugal, which is experiencing an unprecedented drought this year, the fire in the Serra da Estrela natural park, in the center of the country, was declared “controlled” on the night of Friday to Saturday after burning 17,000 hectares, informed the Defense Civil.
Declared a week ago, the fire is “under control”, Commander Miguel Cruz told TSF radio.
“The night was calm, but we still have a lot of work to do” to prevent the outbreaks from being revived, he explained, since the wind forecast for this Saturday “is the main concern” of the firefighters.
This fire, which affected a natural park in the Serra da Estrela mountain range recognized by UNESCO, is the most important that Portugal has suffered this summer.
Since the beginning of the year, almost 79,000 hectares have been burned in the country, the worst balance since 2017, according to the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests.
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