A thick plume of black smoke is back in the Bouches-du-Rhône, at the gates of the Gard. The fire resumed on Monday afternoon between Tarascon and Graveson. In particular, it was necessary to evacuate, in an emergency, a crèche, a summer camp and an outdoor center, in Barbentane where 500 firefighters were mobilized, in the evening. But also three water bomber helicopters and a canadair. And Jean-Christophe Daudet, the mayor of Barbentane, is angry : “clearly it is the lack of means. The 13 firefighters were present, but were not sufficiently relayed and reinforced by aerial means. Today, I think that in France we have the same air resources as 20 or 30 years ago (..) It is up to the State to take its responsibilities, otherwise France will burn in every sense of the word“.
“It’s important to say that we haven’t done anything for five years” Alexandre Jouassard, spokesperson for Civil Security, on France Bleu Gard Lozère
Alexandre Jouassard, spokesperson for Civil Security, chose France Bleu Gard Lozère this Tuesday morning to take stock of the situation : “Through the words of the mayor, there is obviously an observation that we all make. Namely an exceptional, historic summer, with fires throughout the national territory. This observation had nevertheless been anticipated on meteorological analyzes and IPCC reports. We had already started to move the lines, with pelicandromes (Editor’s note: Supply base for retardant product or water for water bomber planes for the fight against forest fires) which have been moved “With the increase in our air fleet on the part of the Dash. So it’s important to say that we haven’t done anything for five years. Quite the contrary. However, there is still effort to be made. in addition, since we have additional risks. This is why we have called on the European Civil Protection mechanism, on this assistance. There are discussions underway to further develop a European civil security base, to be able to help national air fleets. And I think we also have to zoom out a bit, and look at what’s happening with our European neighbours. We have one of the largest fleets, if not the largest in Europe. And the other countries are also in difficulty. So, there is obviously a work of reflection and improvement of our means to be done over time, but we cannot change everything with a wave of a magic wand”.
How many planes are available today?
So today you have about the twelve Canadairs you must have ten Canadairs this morning and potentially you will have eleven in the afternoon, since it is maintenance that is carried out on our planes during the night in connection with the sound alerts and any small breakdowns that were detected yesterday. You should know that our planes are subject to heavy impacts. When you carry out several hundred drops, we have more than 5000 drops for example on the Gironde. When you make that many drops a day, it’s going to strain the resources. And it’s the same thing for our land resources. We also have a follow-up in the workshops of the departmental fire and rescue services. It’s quite normal. But on our air fleet, we are between ten and eleven Canadair out of twelve that are operational
They are all, they are all Canadairs, they are all at the front?
This is exactly what I have just told you, that is to say that out of twelve Canadairs, we may have one or two that are undergoing maintenance. The results for this morning at 8.34 a.m. are obviously different from those at 10.15 a.m. or 12 p.m., precisely because maintenance is done every day, 24 hours a day. And we have planes that become operational again during the daytime. So yes, we have our fleet, mostly most of our fleet which is operational as of this morning.
And you were talking about the dashes too, they too are mobilized and solicited.
Yes quite. These Dash so we have six today. We will have seven at the end of July since the seventh arrived at the very beginning of the month. He still has operational tests to do. This is normal, it is imposed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. This is a figure that is constantly increasing since we only had two in 2019. So we have to see this increase in the fleet and our Dash type planes also allow us to go -since we are talking about the South- Is rightly on your antenna – but they also allow you to go to Brittany when there are 1300 hectares of burns, like last night.
What is also controversial, Alexandre Jouassard, are the response times. Some voices plead for the Canadair, the Dash not all to be concentrated on the base of Nîmes-Garons, but everywhere on the territory. Why do you think it can’t work?
So we offered ourselves a possibility with our pelicandromes to be able to move resources and .. that they could recover from the retardant and recharge and go back into intervention. That is a first element. The second element, namely having bases like that of Nîmes all over the territory, it still represents a reflection to have in the long term. See if it is essential. Two, it represents a cost because the maintenance workshop and the teams have their home base in Nîmes, which means a lot of things. Beyond the logistical aspect. And there are also other other aspects to consider, including training tools, navigation tracking tools. You should know that when the pilots fly, each return from intervention, each return to the base, they are debriefed on their piloting and on the functioning of the flight to function and the potential improvements. So you see, it’s not just a base with hangars, it’s also a whole life that revolves around this Civil Security base. And so reproducing a base like that of Nîmes in several places in France is not necessarily the solution.