Chloé Lagadou, edited by Ophélie Artaud 12:46 p.m., August 12, 2022
European solidarity is taking place in Gironde, where the fire continues to progress slowly.
This Friday morning, German firefighters joined their French colleagues to help them in their fight against the flames, which have already destroyed 7,400 hectares of forest.
Europe 1 went to meet them.
European solidarity at work in Gironde where the fire is progressing more slowly now.
But on this day of peak heat wave, the work of the firefighters once again promises to be intense in the Landiras sector where 7,400 hectares have been calcined.
The 1,100 French firefighters, supported by 361 colleagues from different European countries, Poland, Greece, Austria, Romania and Germany.
Precisely, the German firefighters have just arrived on the Gironde ground, along the departmental road 111, bordered by kilometers of charred pines.
The German sappers are 65 to fight against the fires.
“Coordination is a very important thing”
"Coordination is a very important thing, so we have to rely on the information that the locals give us because we are there to help them. It is our duty to support them. It is very, very important", explains Simon Fritz, the unit commander there.
These firefighters are recognizable thanks to their red and yellow trucks where, of course, everything is written in German.
But also to their outfits.
On the front of their t-shirt sits a flag of Germany.
And everything has been organized to be able to communicate with the French teams.
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"With the French teams, there is a liaison officer who is put in place, who speaks English and who will in fact transmit the objectives set by the head of the sector to which they are assigned. They have been put to rest and they stayed between them to be able to rest, to be able to attack since they still have a long way to go. But of course, they are there to help us. We are here for them to help us so it is necessarily going well", underlines Stéphanie Martin, communications officer.
And the objective today is to secure the fire starts using their trucks and their water lances.
Firefighters are trying to drown the ground and scrape the earth to limit new outbreaks of fires as much as possible.
All in scorching heat.