“Given the state of drought in our country, given the winds which are unfavorable to us, given the lack of rain, there will very certainly be, during these three weeks, even this month and a half of summer, in the south of the France, very important fires”, said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, Wednesday August 10, during a trip to Mostuéjouls (Aveyron) to the command post of the firefighters engaged against the fire which ravaged more than 700 hectares between Aveyron and the Lozere.
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“We must now understand that at the time of global warming, (…) the fire season starts much earlier, affects many points in Europe and, quite a new phenomenon, it now affects the departments north of the Loire”, explained the Minister of the Interior.
“From now on, we will have to live with very significant fire outbreaks north of the Loire and fire seasons which will start in June, perhaps in May, and which will end in October or November” .
Gérarld Darmanin, Minister of the Interior
Consequently, “we must resize our fleet at European level” to fight fires, he deduces. In the short term, France has asked its European neighbors for help. Sweden will lend planes to France to have new air resources in the coming days.
Gérald Darmanin also calls on employers of volunteer firefighters to agree to release them from their responsibilities so that they can return to their barracks.
The Minister of the Interior appeals to citizens’ good citizenship, recalling that “nine out of ten lights are original lights [humaines] – criminal or involuntary – and we have 200 fire starts per day in France today. We put out 98% of them but unfortunately there are a few that escape and become big fires as we know them.”.
Moreover, while the fire which affected the Gironde a few weeks ago has started again, the minister assures us that the authorities have “great suspicions that the fire which has resumed is an arsonist fire”. According to him, there were, this Wednesday morning, eight fires between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. which started a few hundred meters apart. “while it is quite unusual”.