Europe 1 with AFP 5:36 p.m., August 09, 2022
The Maine-et-Loire prefecture said on Tuesday that the fire which started on Monday in the Pugle forest has already burned around 600 hectares, and that 500 are still threatened.
Two fire starts in Saint-Quentin and Saint-Martin, 15 km from the epicenter of the fire in Clefs-Val d'Anjou, were reported by residents.
The fire which started Monday in the forest of Pugle (Maine-et-Loire) has already burned around 600 hectares and 500 are still threatened, we learned on Tuesday from the prefecture and the firefighters.
"620 hectares of forest have burned and the fire is not fixed," the firefighters told AFP.
Two fire starts in Saint-Quentin and Saint-Martin, 15 km from the epicenter of the fire in Clefs-Val d'Anjou, were reported to AFP by residents, who feared that the flames would spread due to the wind.
317 firefighters engaged in the fight
According to the prefecture's Twitter account, "317 men are engaged and 107 vehicles" are mobilized on the twenty sensitive points concerned.
For her part, the sub-prefect of Maine-et-Loire Anny Pietri told AFP that the firefighters in intervention come from nine departments and that they would again resort to "air resources".
A new water carrier should intervene in the afternoon.
According to the same source, some farmers have helped by bringing water to the outskirts of the area using "tank tractors".
Earlier, the prefecture had mentioned on its Twitter page that "a Dash", a water bomber, had "been implemented in the evening" and would be "deployed again in the morning".
About twenty people were also evacuated, most of whom were living in a center for the disabled, according to the sub-prefecture.
500 hectares are still in danger of going up in smoke.
The prosecution previously mentioned about fifty evacuees.
Maine-et-Loire SDIS general controller Jean-Philippe Rivière said that "all the sensitive points are held" but that the fire "continues to progress towards the south".