a giant firewall deployed to spare Biscarrosse from the flames

Raze the forest with bulldozers and chainsaws to prevent the fire from reaching Biscarrosse (Landes) at all costs. This is the objective of the giant firewall set up on the border between the departments of Landes and that of Gironde and whose construction ended on Wednesday July 20. The location is strategic: to the east is the Lac de Sanguinet. To the west, the Atlantic Ocean. Between the two, the vegetation is reduced to nothing to prevent possible flames from progressing.

The road to get there, closed to traffic in recent days, has seen flames ravage the forest of La Teste-de-Buch (Gironde) since July 12. Everywhere, charred trunks still standing, in a partially devastated landscape, punctuated by fumaroles. On the edges of the road, dozens of firefighters, lying in the grass in a row of onions, are regaining their strength. Then the vegetation suddenly disappears. This is the beginning of the 300 meter wide and nearly 5 km long firewall, created to prevent the fire from eating away at this part of the pine forest which belongs to the public domain. In everyone’s mind, an imperative: to protect Biscarrosse, the third most populated city in the Landes with its 14,000 inhabitants.

“It’s reassuring, [avec le pare-feu] we feel protected”, argues Frédéric, co-president of the Biscarrosse Plage merchants association, present on the scene on Wednesday. The Biscarrossais came to the site to supply the living forces, at work during the heat wave to curb the fire. On the menu: veal axoa, a Basque specialty homemade by Alex, also co-president of a Biscarrosse Plage association. Their all-terrain vehicle stops in the middle of the firewall, where the forest is bare, to carry out the distribution of meals. “It gives me goosebumps”, recognizes Alex, leaning against the car. “It’s our forest. Seeing it cut down, even if it’s for a good cause, is strange.”

“We would have preferred not to have to cut these trees”, concedes Rémi, chainsaw in hand, arrived at the site at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning. This pruner, also from Biscarrosse, has been mobilized since Monday to reinforce the construction teams, while the work has turned into a race against the clock in the face of the rapid progression of the flames.

“It’s simple: the sand must be exposed so that there is no spark”, summarizes Mathieu Desmartis, head of the production unit at the National Forestry Office (ONF). It is this organization that has been managing the coordination since Saturday, the date of the start of the work, between the private companies and the public players who work together on the fifty or so machines mobilized.

Technically, you have to first shoot down thepine trees using machines, sometimes with a chainsaw when the terrain is too rugged. The branches of the tree trunks are then cut out. Intact, these will be sent for crushing to be used in stationery. The branches are crushed. The bulldozers finally finish raking the surface of the ground to clear all the vegetation and keep only the sand and earth. The goal: to prevent the slightest flame from taking. At the controls of one of the two machines belonging to the army, Eric, khaki military fatigues and rangers on his feet, is pleased with the work accomplished.

“With the firewall, the fire will not be able to pass”he comments, while the fire in La Teste-de-Buch has already ravaged 7,000 hectares of forest without being circumscribed for the time being. The flames, however, offered some respite with “strongly limited progress” in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to the prefecture of Gironde.