A judicial information will soon be open, said Thursday the prosecutor of Nîmes. In total, the fire has covered nearly 500 hectares.

The origin of the fire that covered 500 hectares in Générac in the Gard is a priori "criminal" and investigators favor the thesis of "the voluntary act," said the prosecutor Nimes Eric Maurel Thursday.

"The investigations and the first results of the investigation allow to consider the criminal track," insisted the prosecutor. "At first, we excluded the natural cause. (...) We now consider that it is a voluntary act," he continued, referring to "a number of elements materials on the premises ".

Facts punishable by 15 years' imprisonment

The magistrate said that a judicial investigation would be entrusted in the coming days to an examining magistrate, for "destruction, degradation and deterioration of nature, with endangering others". These facts are punishable by the Assize Court and are punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment.

This fire Générac, which has covered at least 480 hectares since Tuesday, is "one of the most violent fires that we have known since the beginning of the summer season," said Wednesday the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, on square.

190 evacuees

In the sector, "active surveillance" will be maintained throughout the night from Thursday to Friday, "both risks of recovery are important" with the wind, said the Gard firefighters Thursday late afternoon. 70 firefighters and 15 vehicles are still mobilized to fight against this disaster that mobilized up to 465 people at the height of the flames. This fire did not cause any casualties, even though 190 people had to be evacuated.

At the end of July, the burned surface in the South of France already exceeded the burned surface in 2018, according to Prométhée, the official database of forest fires in the south of France. According to this source, which depends on the prefect of the South Defense and Security Zone, the fires have already burned 3,935 hectares, against 3,066 in 2018, and this for the 15 Mediterranean departments of southern France. These figures did not yet take into account the Générac fire, the exact magnitude of which was not yet known.