Solène Leroux 9:34 a.m., August 11, 2022
No less than eight major fires are currently underway, all over France.
After the time of the fight against the fires will come that of the future of these devastated forests.
The players in the forestry world are already working on the issue.
How will these forests be replanted?
How does reforestation after a fire work in practice?
Several fires continue to ravage forests all over France.
While firefighters are struggling to fix the fires, players in the forestry world are already wondering how they will manage to reforest the burned hectares.
First of all, it is necessary to define if it is possible to recover the burnt wood by selling it, to partially finance the new forest.
Because reforestation has a cost, between 4,000 and 5,000 euros per hectare in the Hérault, according to Francis Cros, president of the forest municipalities of Occitanie.
Carefully select the species to be replanted
"It is very variable. There is the protection of small plants, you have to put nets. There is also the price of the species to be planted", he explains on Europe 1. This is the next step : carefully select the species to be replanted, ideally four or five different species, between softwoods and hardwoods.
For example, cedars, pines, or even beeches or chestnuts.
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A decisive choice for biodiversity
"And then, we hope that after 30 to 40 years, or even beyond, the evolution of the climate will mean that there will perhaps have been two species that will always be present in these territories", details t -he.
A decisive choice for forest biodiversity, explains Anne-Lise Avril, head of communication for forest projects at Reforest'Action: "The objective is really to plant trees that will be both adapted to the climates of tomorrow , in a context of climate change, but also to the pedoclimatic conditions, that is to say to the conditions of the soil and the climate specific to the region where the plot is located"
A necessary diversity, while nearly half of the French forest is made up of trees of a single species according to the National Forest Inventory.
For a forest to regain its pre-fire appearance, it takes between 20 and 30 years.