“Going into the forest remains dangerous” warn the authorities in Gironde

While more than a thousand firefighters are still mobilized to put out the La Teste fire and try to fix the Landiras fire, the authorities are asking everyone to avoid venturing into the forest.

If the fire, which ravaged 7,000 hectares of forest in La Teste, has been fixed since yesterday, the work of the firefighters is far from over.

The fire is smoldering in the basement, it is necessary to water everywhere.

It is no longer the urgency of large flames. We’re doing thorough, painstaking work to avoid any resumption, especially since it’s still hot.

A firefighter in action at La Teste

Firefighters treat edges, flooding unburned areas around burned areas, smother “will smoke“, these incandescent points which can rekindle the fire and cut down fallen trees.

It will be a long time before this fire stops, it will be a work of several weeks

Pauline Aso – fire captain

We must hammer home that the fire is not extinguished, it can resume. Going into the forest remains very dangerous and it is forbidden. Charred trees can fall at any time

Renan Léaustic – sub-prefect of Arcachon

This Sunday, the heat, the wind and the drop in humidity led, unsurprisingly, to renewed fires in La Teste as in Landiras.

“We were prepared for it“say the firefighters who still had to call on a civil security water bomber helicopter as well as the two canadairs based in Mérignac. “They helped us treat a difficult to access area in the La Teste sector, they carried out 26 drops this Sunday afternoon“.

See the report from our teams in the field this Sunday, V. Gascouat, C. Arfel, A. Hirou and M. Plouchard: