«At this stage, the fire is fixed. This means that we consider that it can no longer progress. We have therefore passed the critical phase», announced Saturday during a press briefing Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Agrinier, communications officer for the Gard fire department.
«But for the moment, we are maintaining the device. We must continue the work of treating several kilometers of edges, meter after meter, in depth, and continue monitoring work, to avoid any risk of recovery», added the officer by evoking risky weather.
During the night, the firefighters have already had to deal with two recoveries of the fire.
Referring to the rule of «three thirty» crucial to qualify the dangerousness of a fire, Colonel Agrinier thus underlined that for this fire of Bessèges and Bordezac, in the north of Gard, «the wind is more than 30 km / h , the temperature over 30 degrees and the percentage of humidity in the air particularly low, up to 13% in the afternoon in the area», for a hydrometry that is considered worrying below 30%.
In total, 520 firefighters and 150 vehicles are maintained «for the day and probably part of the night» in the area of this «mega-fire», according to the term used by the emergency services mobilized on the site. Leaving the hamlet of Bordezac around 5:00 p.m. Thursday, this disaster mobilized up to 950 men, but caused no casualties.
The firefighters still have air support on site, in particular to «treat inaccessible hot spots with surgical strikes from helicopters», said Lieutenant-Colonel Agrinier. “We are also currently studying the possibility of transporting pipes to these inaccessible places, by helicopters, to then treat the edges as closely as possible with men on the ground”, he added.
In addition to this fire, the department of Gard, hit daily by numerous fire starts – more than 30 on Friday, 28 Thursday – remains under close surveillance.
Beyond the Bordezac fire, another fire also started on Thursday, for example, ravaged 230 hectares towards the town of Générac, in the south of the department. This same town had been affected by a serious fire in August 2019, which had burned 800 hectares and caused the death of the pilot of a water bomber plane in an accident.
Now fixed, this fire in the Cévennes is fortunately far from the approximately 5,000 hectares devoured by fire in 1985 a few kilometers away, towards the town of Portes.
This year, the biggest fires in France affected the military camp of Canjuers (Var) at the end of June, with 1,800 hectares burned, and the Pyrénées Orientales, also at the end of June, with 1,250 hectares gone up in smoke.
Overall, the Directorate General of Civil Security recommended great caution until Sunday throughout «the Mediterranean area», «due to a very high danger of fires».