Installing “eyes” in the pine forests to track the slightest smoke, prepositioning battalions in the forest to react immediately to any outbreak of fire: firefighters in the south of France are on maximum vigilance during this particularly hot and dry summer.
“We are the eyes of the firefighters, the first link in the chain”, proudly proclaim Laurent Lambert and his wife Danielle*, firefighters assigned 24 hours a day, near Marseille, in a watchtower located at an altitude of 800 meters which overlooks the massifs of Bouches-du-Rhône, a department in the south-east of France.
The couple settled in the watchtower of Grand Puech, on the heights of the Provençal village of Mimet, at the end of May. Assigned to this position for 23 years – a “passionate” job, they say – they realize that the fire season is getting longer from year to year.
“We don’t know when it will end, maybe at the end of September, maybe later,” says Danielle. With a 360-degree panoramic view, they monitor, every day and sometimes at night, when the risk of fire is high, “more than 50,000 hectares of forest massifs”.
The fifties, accustomed to the exercise, first scrutinize with the naked eye. “We always watch in pairs” to be sure not to miss anything, explains Danielle. “The slightest smoke catches our eye, and with the drought, the plume rises very quickly” in the air.
In addition to monitoring through the glass lookout room, similar to that of a lighthouse, Mr. Lambert is also in constant contact with the Departmental Fire and Rescue Operational Center (Codis), which asks him to confirm calls indicating a start of fire.
The department has 29 lookouts, 13 of which are manned 24 hours a day, and cameras installed in the most isolated massifs. A device in line with the strategy adopted by firefighters in the Mediterranean area, the most affected by fires historically: detect the outbreak of fire as quickly as possible, very quickly bring in massive land and air resources.
“95% of fires do not exceed one hectare thanks to the intervention within 10 minutes of foresters-sappers with light vehicles, supported if necessary by firefighters and water bomber helicopters”, indicates Grégory Allione, president of the National Federation of Firefighters.
“Massive Commitment”
If the spouses take their seasonal job to heart, it is also because they care about the mountain ranges that have seen them grow up. “We are lucky to have a magnificent heritage, the heritage of [l’écrivain Marcel] Pagnol”, whom they want to protect.
This same fear “of seeing [les] massive burns” prompted the emergency services to place intervention groups in the forest as a preventive measure.
“With climatic conditions like these, high heat, drought and sometimes wind, we favor a massive commitment”, explains Lieutenant Rémi Girardet, positioned preventively with five colleagues in a wooded area near the highway, their allowing to intervene in less than 10 minutes on a fire outbreak.
On Monday, 150 to 200 men were positioned in forests, ready to intervene. On Sunday, nearly 500 firefighters were mobilized on a fire that destroyed 35 hectares of vegetation about twenty kilometers from Marseille.
For Lieutenant Girardet, the season is “under high tension”, with the hottest month of July since 1947 in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. If it doesn’t rain, the rest of the summer can be “catastrophic”, he warns.
A firefighter for more than 30 years, he experienced virulent fires in the late 1980s, burning tens of thousands of hectares, damaging homes.
“Since then, we have more resources, more specific machinery, a better network”, he judges, but despite the teams’ reactivity, “we can control a few fires, but if we have several departures at the same time, it there will be one who will escape”.
A third episode of summer heat wave began Monday in the south-east of France and should extend to most of the country, still in the grip of a historic drought.
July 2022 is the second driest month (9.7 millimeters of precipitation, i.e. an 84% deficit compared to the 1991-2020 average) ever recorded in the country.
Drought and the close repetition of these heat waves, directly attributed by scientific consensus to climate change, have severely reduced river flows in many regions.
* The first name has been changed at the request of the person concerned