It was doubly affected by the fires of the summer, since Elisabeth Barbe passed it in the middle of the flames. On vacation in La Teste de Buch, then at home in Landiras, she found herself at the heart of the two fires which ravaged a large part of the 30,000 hectares destroyed this summer in Gironde (7,000 in La Teste, and more than 19,000 in the South-Gironde). And she did not remain a spectator, since this osteotherapist took care of the firefighters. “It was a very human experience and suddenly I said to myself why not me?”, she explains at the microphone of France Info.
So she decided to become a volunteer firefighter. “It responds to something that makes me vibrate. I am aware that it is a commitment, at least in the medium term in any case, to want to feel useful”. And Elisabeth Barbe is not an isolated case, since since January 1, there have been 730 candidates wishing to become volunteer firefighters, which is as many as in a whole year.
“A popular craze”, notes Matthieu Jomain, the communication officer for the Gironde firefighters, even if he puts this figure into perspective a little. “Our reservation is that these 730 applications reach the end of the process”, he comments. Elisabeth, for example, will have to pass the physical tests necessary to become a volunteer firefighter.