A death, houses destroyed like forest fires in the south of France

The French firefighters on Wednesday fought to control the largest forest fire in the country in almost 80 years, the fire in the southern region of Aude having already swept a larger area than Paris.

A person died in the village of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, about 30 kilometers from the city of Perpignan, said the prefecture. The fire, which spread very quickly through forests and villages, burned at least 25 houses, forcing residents and tourists to flee. Many roads are closed.

“It is an unprecedented disaster,” said Prime Minister François Bayrou, visiting Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse.

Until now, more than 15,000 hectares have burned. This is similar to the total area that has burned all of France in recent years, said Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. He added that it was the largest area burned by a single fire in France since 1949.

The fire moved incredibly quickly, not allowing time to prepare, said National Renate Koot Dutch, who was on vacation in Saint-Laurent-de-La-Cabrerisse with his partner and had to flee.

“A moment, we were on the phone with our children … thinking:” Look, a fire! “The next one, we had to jump into the car and leave, while praying for protection.” We are fine. Miraculously.”

“It’s incredible. It’s a disaster,” said Issa Spanish Medina, while the fire of the firefighters resounded in the background. Medina was with her family in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse.

The prefecture said that the fire progressed “very quickly” and that nearly 2,000 firefighters were trying to master it. About 2,500 households in the region were currently without electricity, he said.

Fireman’s spokesman Eric Brocardi told RTL Radio that the fire was spread at 5.5 km / h.

High risk of fire due to the weather

Officials and experts warned that the wind could change direction, which still complicates efforts to fight forest fires.

Scientists say that the warmer and drier summers in the Mediterranean region put it at high risk of forest fires. Once the fires are starting, abundant dry vegetation and strong winds in the region can spread them quickly and burn out of control.

“With climate change, the risk of having forest fires should increase during the summer, but also spread in the fall and spring, and spread to the southwest, the center and the north of France,” said Serge Zaka, climate analyst and agriculture.

Meanwhile, Spain has experienced a prolonged heat wave since Sunday which was to extend next week, temperatures reaching 43 ° C in certain regions.

High temperatures have contributed to stretching several forest fires.

Wednesday’s emergency services were still fighting to turn off a fire in Tarifa kitesurf station, in southern Spain, which would have been launched when a caravan in a campsite caught fire.

Wind gusts of up to 50 km / h and high temperatures meant that some parts of the fire that had been turned off, said Antonio Sanz, Minister of the Interior of the Regional Government of Andalusia.

In Portugal, forest fires have burned more than 42,000 hectares so far this year, the largest area since 2022 and eight times more than at the same time last year.

More than half of this area has been assigned in the past two weeks in the midst of high summer temperatures. On Wednesday, firefighters managed to control a large fire that has been raging since Saturday near Vila Real in the North, where the heat wave resulted in temperatures up to 40 ° C this week.