The Bayonne public prosecutor's office announced Friday that a person had been arrested as part of the investigation into the fire in the Chiberta forest, in Anglet last Thursday. 167 hectares of vegetation and five houses were destroyed by the flames.

A person was arrested and was to be brought to justice, after opening a judicial investigation, as part of the investigation into the fire in the Chiberta forest in Anglet (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), the prosecution said on Friday. from Bayonne. According to France Bleu, it would be a teenager.

The human origin of the fire quickly established

In a statement, the prosecution announced the holding of a press conference on Friday 6 p.m. by the Bayonne public prosecutor Jérôme Bourrier, "in view of the new elements revealed by the investigation (...), and of the opening of a judicial investigation today, with presentation of an accused person ".

No other details have filtered initially on the profile of the person implicated, nor on the accidental or criminal nature of the fire, even if the prosecution had very quickly last week established its "human origin".

167 hectares gone up in smoke

The spectacular fire in the Chiberta forest, 270 hectares of pine forest in the heart of the town in Anglet, destroyed 167 hectares of vegetation on Thursday, five houses, damaged six others, without causing any victims. About twenty people had gone through the hospital for minor smoke poisoning. The mayor of Anglet Claude Olive felt that a "human drama" had been avoided.

By detailing the first findings of the investigation into "human origin", the vice-prosecutor Caroline Parizel had indicated: "There was no lightning or electric wire which would have caused a spark. It is therefore a human action, which means that there was human intervention, but it could be a cigarette butt, or a shard of a bottle that would have had a magnifying effect. "

It remained to the investigation "the most difficult", according to the magistrate, to determine whether the fire is of accidental or criminal origin, with voluntary ignition. Samples had been taken for analysis. The investigation has already made it possible to determine a single fire starting zone, near the Orok Bat rugby stadium, on the edge of the Chiberta forest.