“What is responsible is to cancel” fireworks, Colonel Grégory Allione, president of the National Federation of Firefighters of France, said Thursday on franceinfo, as the July 14 festivities will unfold while firefighters fight several fires in drought conditions and heat wave.
franceinfo: In Gironde, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin calls for the vigilance of the French in the face of the risk of fire, you too, are you sending this message?
Gregory Allione: We can only endorse the minister’s comments. For years, we have been saying that we need a real prevention policy because the population is a potential arsonist. There is a very strong link between population density, traffic on roads and departures of traffic lights. Which means that anyone can become a potential arsonist. Above all, Gérald Darmanin said, these fires lead to death. Today, we talk about destroyed vegetation, there is no human drama but it is really the consequence that we fear.
We are only on July 14 and we are experiencing conditions that are more similar to mid-August, we have a month in advance. Drought and climate change are not making our job any easier, but the real difficulties we have is that there are a lot of outbreaks of fire because the population is, unfortunately, poorly educated in civic behavior in massifs which are very vulnerable at the moment.
A few weeks ago, you spoke of a “summer of all dangers”. Here we are ?
Yes, I even said that firefighters, for more than two years, have been in a washing machine in spin mode. Because the Covid is coming back, because we vaccinated, we transported, we tested in airports, ports. We tested sewage in the territories. The emergency crisis has a strong impact on us since firefighters are outpost caregivers, especially in pre-hospital. We also have this drought, the heat wave, at the moment, it is we who are called when there is discomfort on the public highway or at home. So indeed, the firefighters experience the summer of all dangers.
This is why we share the call of a number of elected officials and authorities who say that a more ambitious policy is needed in terms of protection and civil security, at national and European level. Even though our authorities have this ambition, we have to go a step above. Because climate change is not for 2030, it is right now. We are talking about forest fires at the moment but in the fall, we will certainly be talking about Mediterranean episodes and again about the washing machine in spin mode.
Are you asking for additional bonuses? Ways to recruit more firefighters?
The subject of the indemnity will inevitably come but it is not the major subject today. The major subject is that we must strengthen professional firefighters, who remain the backbone of our civil security model. And above all, have an ambition to recruit, defend and recognize the volunteer firefighter. They are currently 198,000. They are people like everyone else who, beyond the professional aspect, have an activity for the benefit of others, a form of altruism, of devotion to society. It would be interesting to be able to push this figure to 250,000 volunteer firefighters in 2027 because today, we need volunteer firefighters.
For July 14, certain municipalities such as Nîmes or Saint-Rémy-de-Provence have canceled their fireworks. Others maintain them, including in the South. Is it responsible?
What is responsible is to cancel them, to take into account that we are in a period of drought and heat wave where everyone is called upon, the firefighters as well as the municipal forest fire committees, who are volunteers who help us accompanying them, the forest sappers, the police too. A whole chain of protection and security is mobilized. Perhaps it is useless to mobilize them even more. What is more, there is the subject of exemplarity. Regularly, we have difficulties, at night, because of fireworks fired by individuals. If the police don’t shoot fireworks, maybe that also sets an example for the population not to shoot fireworks as well.