Chloé Lagadou and Gauthier Delomez 6:35 p.m., August 12, 2022

Since Thursday, firefighters from several European Union countries have come to lend a hand to French firefighters in Gironde, where fires have burned 7,400 hectares of pine forest.

In "Europe Soir Week-end", the spokesperson for civil security details how this European solidarity is organized on the ground.

In Gironde, 1,100 firefighters accompanied by 361 foreign firefighters are busy fighting the fire near Hostens, where around 7,400 hectares of pine forest have been burned.

Their main mission is to deal with all the residual hot spots, that is to say the remnants of still smoldering fires close to the areas that have not burned.

For this, European aid from five countries is appropriate, underlines Commander Alexandre Jouassard, spokesman for civil security.

In

Europe Soir Week-end

, he explains how the reception of foreign sappers works, a first in France.

A European mechanism built over 20 years

This EU civil protection mechanism has been built for 20 years, and France has largely participated and contributed to it", first indicates the spokesperson for civil security at the microphone of Jeanne Baron. "Today, we has procedures, we have all the staff who are trained in how to welcome our European members", says Alexandre Jouassard. "For this, we have liaison officers on site who accompany the teams arriving and who know exactly what they have to do,” he explains.

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French and foreign firefighters are working together to fight the flames.

"We are already used to working together", underlines the spokesperson, "since we have done many exercises in the past, and also commitments, especially in Greece last year, where 250 women and men left with many machines", he recalls.