Nice (AFP)

Overloaded multiple sockets, improvised DIY, children bent over the balcony at 8:00 pm: firefighters fear more than ever domestic accidents linked to confinement at a time when the invisible enemy of the coronavirus complicates each intervention and creates "permanent stress".

"The activity is decreasing, especially on road accidents, but the interventions have nothing to do with usual (...) and the firefighters are today worried permanently", explains to AFP Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for the National Federation of Firefighters in France.

"Usually, if we go to a sprained ankle or knee, we know that we are going to put an ice pack, put a splint and take the victim to the emergency room. There, we have to investigate the victim, put all our protective gear ", details this captain from Nice.

"When we come back, the stress is there, we wonder if we got something and we don't sleep well at night," he says.

If they remain insignificant according to the Departmental Fire and Rescue Services (SDIS) interviewed by AFP, some domestic accidents have occurred related to the obligation to stay at home.

Three days after the start of confinement, the Vendée firefighters reported a black series essentially linked to DIY or gardening, good weather requires: "falls from the roof or ladder, injuries caused by chainsaws, mowers, hedge trimmers. .. "

"The care of the victims of these accidents contributes to the increase in the activity of center 15 (medical regulation) and to an increase in the number of people admitted to the emergency room while the containment measures aim to limit regroupings", warned SDIS 85 on Facebook.

Other departments, such as the Drôme, have prohibited scorching and burning of green waste to limit the risk of fire starting.

The number one problem, continues Mr. Brocardi, is "the electrical overload linked to the use of telephones or portable devices".

- "Enemy" invisible -

In Nice, the firefighters intervened last week for a start of fire caused by an overloaded electrical power strip, placed on a terrace.

"We have had people who have moved to second homes where they have lit the chimney without cleaning the flue," increasing the risk of fire, said Brocardi.

"When the television and the radio are switched on for 10 hours a day, it is no longer the same use of the home on a daily basis," he explains, emphasizing the preventive measures.

"1) no phone in wet rooms 2) avoid overloading everything at the same time 3) avoid multiple sockets which are not European standards, with the real logo".

"Defenestrations can also happen (...) because every night, we put ourselves at the window at 8:00 p.m., everyone bends down to look at the neighbors: children should not be left alone," he said.

Another point, "it is not because the DIY stores are closed that we must use equipment that is not necessarily suitable: we run the risk of hurting ourselves, creating a short-circuit or electrocuting ourselves".

If the public respects these instructions, firefighters can "focus on helping people at risk of infection", which is done under intense pressure with the health crisis.

"I am going to intervene (...), I do not see the enemy who is a virus, I redouble my vigilance, and from a point of view of psychological fear, I enter an environment that I do not know ", says this fireman. Then put "blouse, glasses, charlotte".

"When we see flames and smoke, we put on a mask, a helmet, an insulating breathing apparatus, we are armored, we see the enemy and we know how to control it, how to put it out and kill it. Today hui, we do not know what it is "face the virus, he continues.

The intervention stops only when all the elements carried on you have completed the decontamination cycle and the ambulance has been completely cleaned.

"So", insists Mr. Brocardi, an intervention which basically makes an hour, today makes three, between the moment we get dressed and the moment when the truck is made operational again ".

© 2020 AFP