Europe 1 with AFP 7:06 p.m., August 23, 2021
A week after the start of the fire which devastated more than 7,000 hectares of vegetation in the Var, firefighters indicated that it was under control.
No less than 400 of them are still mobilized to prevent the fire from resuming in this area.
The violent fire that started a week ago on the Côte d'Azur, devastating 7,000 hectares, was brought under control on Monday but it will take several days for it to be declared extinct, the Var firefighters announced. "The fire is under control: it is contained in its current envelope thanks to the work of the teams on the ground", explained the emergency services who tried to create a retardant barrier "as tight as possible". Some 400 firefighters, however, remain mobilized to treat the edges and "this phase will last several days", they warned.
If the fire is "under control", that is to say without resumption of flames, it is not yet extinguished: "We will need at least a week before declaring it" extinct "" - that is to say -to say without embers - "because of the scale of this fire," Captain Olivier Pécot told AFP on Monday morning.
As of Friday, the fire, which claimed the lives of two people and led to the evacuation of thousands of people in the hinterland of Saint-Tropez, had been declared "fixed".
Fears of new takeovers
But the firefighters feared new recoveries thanks to the wind which blew all weekend on this fire which is the biggest in France this year.
On Monday, many massifs around the French Mediterranean were also placed on fire red vigilance.
On Saturday, in an area close to the fire, a 56-year-old man was arrested when he "voluntarily set fire to a piece of forest," said the Draguignan prosecutor's office. The firefighters were quickly able to extinguish this disaster. He was to be presented to an examining magistrate with a view to arson. Several Mediterranean countries were hit this summer by serious fires, from Israel to Morocco, via Greece and Algeria.