Carcassonne (AFP)
Some 280 firefighters struggled in the night from Wednesday to Thursday in the Aude against a fire that destroyed about 400 hectares of pine forests and continued to progress shortly before 23H00, without threatening "major stake", was learned from firefighters.
The fire, which began around 16:00 southeast of Carcassonne, "is not circumscribed but we have no major stake - no hamlets, no villages, no homes in number - in the axis of its spread, "told AFP the commander Philippe Fabre, head of the operational group of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Aude.
"It remains for the moment only an environmental issue," said the commander Fabre. Shortly before 23:00, the fire had made "no victim and no degradation" other than vegetation.
The fire broke out for an unknown reason in an area of pine forests and low vegetation classified "severe" because of the drought, in the municipality of Montirat. Around 8 pm, he had already ravaged about 200 ha.
During its progression, isolated homes, less than a dozen according to the commander, were secured and protected by firefighters. Their inhabitants were confined in buildings, shutters and windows closed.
"These are sheep-type dwellings or isolated houses," said the commander.
Some 280 men were mobilized and were to receive in the short term the reinforcement of two columns of firefighters from Aix-en-Provence and Nimes, or about 120 men.
In the afternoon, four Canadair and a Dash bomber aircraft intervened because the area, in relief "is difficult to access" for firefighters, according to the Departmental Operational Fire and Rescue Center (Codis) of the Aude.
The aircraft, however, stopped their rotations at dusk and will not resume them with the sunrise.
On the relief, the wind was blowing from west to east between "30 and 40 km / h" according to firefighters.
In the Occitanie region, another fire broke out in the Hérault department.
Some 50 ha of pine forests burned, no dwelling was threatened, according to Codis 34.
The fire is located in Forty, in the west of the department.
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© 2019 AFP