They will always remember the terrible images fires that ravaged the Gironde : “Huge flames, which advance very quickly”. 16 Moselle firefighters who have just returned from their intervention on one of the most violent fires of the summer tell their stories.
Fire comes right, left, front, back
Commander Emmanuel Welter of the SDIS (Departmental Fire and Rescue Service) of Moselle, was on site as assistant to the column leader, he describes impressive flames, “which progress very quickly, not necessarily in the direction as we study it in our forest fire training. The Landes are only fir forests… On the other hand, the carpet is a lot of As a general rule, fire spreads through ferns, then when it reaches a relatively low stratum, it goes away! It comes to the right, it comes to the left, in front, behind. We have to be constantly vigilant, to prevent the fire from taking us from behind”.
For Lieutenant Rémi Wattenbach, Head of the Delme Operational Unit (Moselle), speaks of a “Fire of rare power, even the elders had never seen that! It was an extremely trying week, both physically and morally, despite everything, we held on. Tuesday, we did 7am-7am, so 24 hours of fire, and we were often woken up around 4 or 5 a.m., to do what we call sensitive point defenses, that is to say, to defend the houses threatened by the flames. have been saved. That is really very satisfying.”.
The fire passed over us
He believes that with his Moselle colleagues, he has matured on this intervention. Firefighter for 5 years, Corporal Quentin Le Goupil of the Faulquemont Operational Unit explains that he experienced his first forest fire campaign in the south: “We went in front of the fire, and as soon as the fire was on us, we tried to stop it… Which we never managed to do, because the fire was too virulent. Suddenly, the fire passed to the above us. We were on a road, in front of us the forest was burning; behind us, it was not burning and the goal was to protect the one that was not burning. The fire unfortunately was so intense that it passed over of our heads, above our machines, and then burned the forest behind. Once the fire passed above us, we had to get into the truck urgently, get out of the flames, to then go back to the fire again, try to put it out. I’ve made fires before here in our area, but never fires like this.” An impressive experience, but which made him want to leave for other large-scale operations.
It’s clearly a fire that I hope not to relive
Olivier, 55-year-old staff sergeant and volunteer firefighter for 30 years, says for his part: “It’s clearly a fire that I hope not to relive. It’s a lesson in life, already as a firefighter with the magnitude of the means. Then, among the locals, we feel an anxiety, they are afraid of relive that. They were evacuated again, and there is a very special welcome, which is very touching, from everyone. The solidarity that was built around that is also a lesson in life.”.
There is one injured in the ranks of the Moselle firefighters, a young recruit suffers from second degree burns on the legs. Now the fire is fixed and the evacuated residents have been able to return home.