The fire continues to ravage Gironde, where since Tuesday nearly 14,000 hectares have already been destroyed by the flames. This Monday, firefighters announced the upcoming evacuation of 3,500 people during the day.
These new preventive evacuations take the number of discharged people to 16,200 who have had to pack their bags urgently since Tuesday.
In Teste-de-Buch, “The situation is getting worse. The fire has come to sea and is moving south”, according to a tweet from the prefecture, which called for “extreme caution”.
On social networks, Internet users have published photos and videos taken from the sea, of this huge fire devouring the “30 meters high” beach of the lagoon, south of Dune du Pilat.
three extra planes
“Large resources are being deployed in the sector. However, the fire should not reach the Landes department as the wind must turn to the west and north,” Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Mendos told AFP.
In a press release, the Interior Ministry announced reinforcements “as of this evening, with three additional aircraft” to support the six bombers already engaged, as well as “11 heavy trucks with 200 additional firefighters (.. .)”.
In the afternoon, a union of civil aviation pilots called for more planes and available personnel: “At the time I speak to you, we don’t have the planes we should have”, AFP Christophe Govilot, spokesman for the National Told the Union of Civil Aeronautics Flight Crew (SNPNAC).
Hell isn’t over on the west side, which will be hit by a heat wave at noon on Monday.
The “Red” alert issued on Sunday, which recommends that residents of the areas concerned observe “full vigil” in the face of a “hazardous event of exceptional intensity”, pertains to the following departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Ctes-d’ Armour, Dordogne, Finistre, Gers, Gironde, Ile-et-Villain, Landes, Loire-Atlantique, Lot-et-Garonne, Main-et-Loire, Morbihan, Deux-Savers and Vendée.
Fifty departments are also in orange vigil (meaning “be very alert”) and the rest of France – with the exception of Corse-du-Sud – is in yellow (“be careful”).
The hottest ever recorded in France could be on Monday. “In some areas of the southwest, it will be a summer apocalypse,” Meteo France forecaster François Gourand told AFP.
“Tomorrow a lot of records are expected: in Brittany, maybe up to 40ºC in Brest”, which would be an absolute record, but also in Landes, where “Landes One will be above 42ºC and probably up to 44ºC,” predictor Olivier Olivier during the press briefing Proust said.
“Really Hot Night”
The night from Monday to Tuesday will scorch in the red in all departments: “We are going to have a really hot night”, with minimum temperatures not falling below 25/26 C in the coolest of nights, he said.
The red alert should be lifted from 6 a.m. Tuesday, as the heat will flow east from the Atlantic. But the intense heat is expected to continue in the southeast.
Pollution peaks are to be expected under the influence of heat, particularly from Brittany to Provence-Alpes-Cte d’Azur, according to the national air quality forecasting platform Prev’air.
Everywhere, the heat increases the risk of fire: in the Loire-Atlantique, a “violent fire of vegetation” began in Montreal on Sunday: “the fire burned 35 hectares of pine forest between the A11 motorway and the Loire” and ” Must be circulated in” Evening “, according to the prefecture. As a precaution, “some residents living in settlements near the burned area were evacuated”.
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