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WILDFIRES

Residents and tourists evacuated as wildfires rage in south-west France

More than 6,500 people have been evacuated from villages and campsites in south-west France as firefighters battle to bring two raging wildfires under control

Published: 13 July 2022 11:55 CEST
Residents and tourists evacuated as wildfires rage in south-west France
(Photo: Thibaud Moritz / AFP)

Some 600 firefighters are battling two large forest fires in the Gironde département, around Bordeaux, that have destroyed more than 1,700 hectares of land and forced the evacuation of more than 6,500 people.

The fires, south of Bordeaux, started on Tuesday, near the communes of Landiras, in the south of the Gironde, and at La Teste de Buch on the south shore of Arcachon Bay.

The Landiras blaze had destroyed more than 1,000 hectares of pine forest, local official Fabienne Buccio confirmed on Wednesday morning. “The front extends over five kilometres,” she told journalists. 

Smoke from the fire is visible from the Bordeaux ring road.

READ ALSO What to do if you see a wildfire in France

But, Buccio said: “It’s not a megafire. We are not overwhelmed. No one has been injured and no houses affected,” adding that 300 firefighters from other areas have been brought in to help tackle the flames.

A total 500 residents were evacuated overnight from five hamlets and the village of Guillos and taken to shelter in the villages of Louchats and La Brède. 

Authorities have closed a number of roads in the area, notably the RD115 between Guillos and Landiras, the RD220 between Guillos and Origne, the RD125 between Guillos and Landiras.

Meanwhile, a shift in the wind at 1am on Wednesday prompted authorities battling the blaze at La Teste to order the evacuation of five campsites near the Dune du Pilat.

Some 6,000 people were taken to the resort’s parc des expositions and a local supermarket, while 100 motorhomes were moved to the resort of Biscarrosse in the neighbouring Landes département.

“Access [to the fire] is difficult, so we are following the fire, which is still evolving,” fire commander Laurent Dellac told journalists early on Wednesday.

READ ALSO ‘Be vigilant’: The parts of France braced for forest fires this summer

The departmental road D218 is closed between the roundabout of Pilat and Biscarrosse plage.

A total of 200 firefighters and 95 vehicles, with reinforcements from Charente, Charente-Maritime, Dordogne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques, were mobilised overnight to combat the blaze, which has consumed more than 700 hectares of forest.

Président of the Département de la Gironde Jean-Luc Gleyze told regional newspaper Sud Ouest: “All the factors were there to aggravate the fire: heat wave, exceptionally dry low vegetation, swirling winds. 

“It is to be hoped that the intervention of the Canadairs will stabilise the front. Firefighters arrive as reinforcements throughout France.

READ ALSO 1,000 firefighters battle ‘mega-fire’ in southern France

National weather forecaster Meteo-France placed Gironde – along with Lot-et-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn, Haute-Garonne, Ardèche and Drôme – on orange heat wave alert on Wednesday. 

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ENVIRONMENT

The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

The river Seine, the centrepiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July, starts with a few drops of water in a mossy grotto deep in the woods of central France.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:43 CEST
The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

And not a day goes by without Jacques and Marie-Jeanne Fournier going to check the source only a few paces from their door.

“I go there at least three times a day. It’s part of me,” 74-year-old Marie-Jeanne told AFP.

Her parents were once the guardians of the source, and now that unofficial mantle has fallen on her and husband Jacques.

Barely 60 souls live in the village of Source-Seine in the wooded hills north of Dijon.

By the time the tiny stream has reached the French capital 300 kilometres away it has become a mighty river 200 metres wide.

But some mornings barely a few damp traces are visible at the source beneath the swirling dragonflies. If you scratch about a bit in the grass, however, a small stream quickly forms.

The source — one of two spots where the river officially starts — bubbles up through the remains of an ancient Gallo-Roman temple built about 2,000 years ago, said Jacques Fournier, 73.

Celtic goddess

But you could easily miss this small out-of-the-way valley. There are few signs to direct tourists to the statue of the goddess Sequana, the Celtic deity who gave her name to the river.

In the mid-19th century Napoleon III had a grotto and cave built “where the source was captured to honour the city of Paris and Sequana,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier.

Her parents moved into a house next to the grotto and its reclining nymph in the early 1950s when she was four years old.

Her father Paul Lamarche was later appointed its caretaker and would regularly welcome visitors. A small stone bridge over the Seine while it is still a stream is named after him.

“Like most children in the village in the 1960s,” Fournier learned to swim in a natural pool in the river just downstream from her home.

“It was part of my identity,” said Fournier, who has lived all her life close to rivers. She retired back to Source-Seine to run a guesthouse because “the Seine is a part of my parents’ legacy”.

The Olympic flame is due to be carried past the site on July 12th on its way to Paris.

The couple will be there to greet it, but as members of the Sources of the Seine Association, they are worried how long the river will continue to rise near their home.

Every year the grotto has become drier and drier as climate change hits the region, where some of France’s finest Burgundy wines are produced.

“My fear is that the (historic) source of the Seine will disappear,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier. “Perhaps the source will be further downstream in a few years.”

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