The fire which has ravaged 650 hectares since Thursday in the Cévennes, in the north of the Gard, is still under close surveillance on Saturday and 550 firefighters are still mobilized, after having had to deal with "two edge alarm clocks" during the night.

Leaving the hamlet of Bordezac on Thursday around 5:00 p.m., the disaster, which caused no casualties, is certainly now under control.

But fire awakenings are still frequent, "and this shows that maintaining significant resources on site is still justified", explains Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Agrinier, communication officer for the Gard firefighters.

Up to 950 at the height of the disaster on Friday, the firefighters are only 550 to be mobilized since Friday evening, and the workforce could drop further during the day, depending on the evolution of the disaster, which is not still not under control.

The lightening of the device is all the more necessary as the department is still hit daily by numerous departures of fire, “more than 30 on Friday again”, thus recalled Colonel Agrinier.

“Very high danger of fires” on the shores of the Mediterranean

Beyond the Bordezac fire, another fire also started on Thursday, for example, ravaged 230 hectares towards the town of Générac, in the south of the department.

This same town had been affected by a serious fire in August 2019, which had burned 800 hectares and caused the death of the pilot of a water bomber plane in an accident.

Now contained, the fire in the Cévennes is fortunately far from the approximately 5,000 hectares that had been devoured by fire in 1985 a few kilometers away, already in the Cévennes massif.

This year, the biggest fires in France affected the military camp of Canjuers (Var) at the end of June, with 1,800 hectares burned, and the Pyrénées Orientales, also at the end of June, with 1,250 hectares gone up in smoke.

Overall, the Directorate General of Civil Security recommended great caution until Sunday throughout “the Mediterranean area”, “due to a very high danger of fires”.

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