In the box which serves as their dormitory, heart from La Teste-de-Buch exhibition center (Gironde), Juan and Carine hung over their cots a few hastily picked up clothes and others bought at the Leclerc supermarket next door. “We had prepared a small bag with toiletries, but we didn’t think we would have to stay here so long,” sighs this 53-year-old truck driver, his eyes darkened by nights spent on a makeshift bed. The couple lived in Cazaux (Gironde) before the start of the fire which occurred on Tuesday July 12 in the forest of the town of La Teste-de-Buch, near their home.
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Before 6,500 hectares of pine forest burned at the foot of the Dune du Pilat, the fumes gradually arrived around the couple’s home last Thursday. “It felt like it was night in broad daylight,” testifies Juan. The eyes burned, the throat dried up in the air that was difficult to breathe. Then, ashes invaded their garden. So the police knocked on their door at 4:30 p.m. to force them to evacuate, like the 4,000 inhabitants of the town.
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For four nights, the couple has been sleeping in the La Teste-de-Buch exhibition center, like a hundred other evacuees. In this austere room with white walls, located in a commercial area, live together isolated elderly people, passing tourists or even families without alternative accommodation. All are supported, every day, by goodwill, members of associations and town hall employees, themselves sometimes forced to leave their homes.
Among them is Christine, a doctor by profession. With other practitioners, she provides voluntary consultations at the exhibition center. She checks the health status of new arrivals daily. “The heat accentuates the toxicity of the fumes, this can cause breathing difficulties, especially for the most fragile, who can decompensate”she explains.
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“At first it looked like it was Woodstock with the tents deployed at the entrance”, smiles Juan, a great fan of rock’n roll. The couple’s daily life is now punctuated by meals organized on a voluntary basis in the refectory of the Henri Dheurle college. of La Teste-de-Buch, and calls to family, in Brittany, two to three times a day. And then there are the rounds made morning and evening, in the cool, to try to find Nirvana, their cat who disappeared upon arrival at the non-air-conditioned camp when the outside temperature exceeded 40 degrees.
The animal, which remained for a time alone in the evacuated house, was recovered by its owner on Saturday during an exceptional convoy organized by the prefecture. Before it escapes its owners a second time. “I was so scared for my cat with the fire. And finally, we lost him here…”, in a fairground where there are many stressed pets. While waiting for the hypothetical return of Nirvana, the couple kills time at the back of the room with another family, met on the spot.
Stéphane and his companion Pamela, from Eure, were passing through the region with their three children when she was devoured by the flames. In Cazaux, a village in the town of La Teste-de-Buch, they were visiting their relatives, with their dog Poussin. The family home was also evacuated last Thursday, before they joined the improvised camp.
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“We waited until the last moment before leaving, because we needed an ambulance to leave the house. My aunt is disabled”, says the father of the family. A time transported to the Bordeaux hospital, the latter was again evacuated in the night from Monday to Tuesday from the Ehpad de Pilat, threatened by the fire, where she had found refuge last weekend.
Since then, it has been radio silence. Stéphane does not know where his aunt is. “We try to stay calm, being on edge would not bring anything”, tempers his wife Pamela, while inhaling energetically on her electronic cigarette. Amandine, their eldest daughter of 17, readily admits that the situation is morally heavy. “Sometimes I have panic attacks,” confides the teenager.
No question, however, of returning to their home in the Eure. “I want to help my family and see the village of my childhood again, breathes Stéphane in a crack of voice. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. My 17-year-old daughter has always known Cazaux, it’s my home here”. “Lhe hardest thing to live with is uncertainty”, assures Carine, who stands next to her friends in misfortune. She hopes for a return to her home “maybe next week”, without much certainty, while Canadair are still active in the sector.