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ENVIRONMENT

700 firefighters battle forest fire in southern France

Residents were evacuated overnight as flames threatened villages in the area

Published: 8 July 2022 09:34 CEST
Firefighters spray water to extinguish a wildfire burning at night
Firefighters spray water to extinguish a wildfire near Besseges, southern France. (Photo: Sylvain Thomas / AFP)

Around 700 firefighters backed by aircraft are battling a massive blaze in France’s southern Gard département that had already burned 600 hectares (1,500 acres) overnight.

The operation “is continuing, but the fire is advancing more slowly and fortunately is no longer threatening any homes,” a spokesman for the local fire service told AFP, adding that several fire fronts remained “inaccessible”.

Two Milan firefighting planes resumed dumping water on the blaze from early in the morning, the spokesman said.

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

The prefecture this morning placed several areas of the département on red alert for fire risks.

People in the hamlet of Bordezac and other small settlements in the Besseges area were evacuated on Thursday evening, with the local prefect’s office saying around 100 had to be put up for the night.

Firefighters were drawn from neighbouring regions to battle the flames Thursday, while 12 firefighting planes and two helicopters were also deployed.

The fire service said thousands of hectares of heavily wooded land were under threat, as strong winds fanned the flames through the dried-out trees.

Although several other fires began in the region on Thursday, most were put out before nightfall.

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

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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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