Fire in Aveyron and Lozère: 400 hectares burned, 1,200 people evacuated

Europe 1 with AFP 06:44, August 09, 2022

A fire that started at the end of the day on Monday from Massegros, in Lozère, triggered by an agricultural machine, had covered more than 400 hectares around 11 p.m. and reached neighboring Aveyron, noted an AFP journalist.

The prefecture of Aveyron announced Tuesday morning the evacuation overnight of a thousand people.

1,200 people evacuated

"Evacuations took place all night. Between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., 1,200 people were thus able to be taken care of," she wrote on her Facebook account, announcing the arrival early in the morning of three Canadairs who had come of the Gard.

The fire started because of an agricultural machine

The fire started because of an agricultural machine, part of which, by scraping the very hot tar of the road, in a context of great drought, set ablaze part of a departmental near Massegros, north of Montpellier, according to the firefighters.

The surface covered, from 50 hectares at 5.30 p.m., quickly increased to 400 hectares around 11 p.m.

200 firefighters from Lozère and Aveyron were engaged, ready to fight the fire all night long.

Reinforcements arrived in the evening from Haute-Garonne.

The fire moved freely in areas of very dense pine forest and difficult to access towards the gorges of the Tarn.

Several fire starts were noted along the RD32 (Lozère) and the RD9 (Aveyron), in particular at a place called Bombes, in Aveyron.

Already more than 47,000 hectares burned since the beginning of the year

On June 18 and 19, 35 km from Mostuéjouls, another fire in Comprégnac (Aveyron) had covered 430 hectares of forest, without causing any victims.

Dozens of people had been evacuated as a precaution.

With already more than 47,000 hectares burned since the start of the year, France experienced a record number of burned areas in July, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which has kept comparable statistics since 2006. .