The drought combined with the heat waves that hit France this summer favors the development of fires according to Romaric Cinotti.
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“I would like Gérald Darmanin not to be right but, unfortunately, I cannot opt for an optimistic scenario”, deplores Wednesday August 10 on franceinfo Romaric Cinotti. The national referent of vegetation fires at Météo France agrees with the Minister of the Interior who declared this Wednesday that“there will most certainly be very large fires” in the coming weeks. Xiaomi Cinotti “hope that more heat waves will not continue afterwards”.
franceinfo: Are all the weather conditions in place to promote the development of fires?
Romaric Cinotti: Unfortunately yes, with these drought conditions well anchored in the ground, with a long absence of precipitation, with this heatwave orange vigilance and therefore very high heat and very low humidity. For example, currently in Bordeaux, we have a humidity of about 10% whereas usually in dry situations, we are rather around 35 to 40%. It could get worse by adding a very strong wind, but even a weak wind that changes direction is very problematic for firefighting. This is why the Météo France teams are fully mobilized.
Is Gérald Darmanin right to warn that there will be major fires in the coming weeks?
I wish he weren’t right but, unfortunately, I can’t opt for an optimistic scenario. We are really in very hot and very dry conditions for the next few days. Maybe we will have a degradation this weekend which will be able to temporarily limit the devastating effects of these high heat, but we are in a state of drought such that the vegetation will not be able to become completely green again all at once . So, indeed, the situation will remain to be monitored and we hope that other heat waves will not continue afterwards.
Is this a situation that we have already experienced in the summer in France?
Such a level of drought combined with a succession of heat waves, it is really a combination that recalls the year of great drought 1976 and also the year 2003. These are two years that are anchored in the memories as years of the worse, so 2022 will unfortunately go down in history, especially on the subject of forest fires, with already too many surfaces ravaged by flames.