Autized by the Mistral and the Tramontane, whose gusts blow 60 kilometers/hour on dry land, a fire in the town of Aubais, south of Nîmes, made four injured among the firefighters and provoked The partial closure of the A9 motorway between Lunel and Gallargues.
Le Monde with AFP
high temperatures, strong winds and historical drought: conditions are conducive to fire departures. A fire destroyed 200 hectares of pine forest in the Gard in the town of Aubais, south of Nîmes, Sunday July 31. He caused an important plume of smoke which required the partial closure of the A9 motorway, according to the firefighters and the prefecture.
“Four firefighters are injured,” said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin in a tweet about the fire that started around 3 p.m. in Aubais, along the departmental road 12. One of them, “seriously injured”, was evacuated to the Montpellier hospital center for burns, the other three, more slightly injured, were victims of a “hot stroke” following a reversal Wind flames which partially destroyed their vehicle, the Colonel Agrinier, which coordinates operations on site.
A violent fire broke out in Aubais, in the Gard. Significant human and air resources are mobilized. That… https://t.co/e0vcbpqt1b
Attisé by the Mistral and the Tramontane, whose gusts blow 60 kilometers/hour on dry land, the fire progresses by 2.5 to 3 kilometers per hour, the Commander William Borelly, charged to AFP, communication at the departmental fire and rescue service of the Gard.
Five planes and a water bomber helicopter are in action. Reinforcements of firefighters from neighboring departments are also expected to help the 170 fire soldiers already mobilized. Some preventive evacuations in Aubais districts were underway and a multipurpose room was opened in the village to accommodate these inhabitants, said the prefecture and the firefighters at AFP.
release of smoke
For safety, the A9, which notably serves Spain, was closed in both directions of traffic over ten kilometers between Lunel and Gallargues, announced the Vinci motorway company. “The fire does not impact the highway, but a significant release of smoke presents a risk for traffic,” said Vinci, who has set up traffic management measures on the A9 and the A54.
Consequently, the urban highway A709 has also been closed to traffic in both directions between Montpellier Sud (exit n ° 30) and Montpellier Ouest (n ° 31), as a safety measure, adds the company Highway. “There are currently 3 kilometers of plug in the direction of Spain and 4 kilometers of cork in the direction of Lyon,” also said Vinci.
several magnitude fires
In anticipation of a new episode of heat wave, Météo-France placed five departments under orange vigilance Sunday in the south of France. The Gard is among them, with the Ardèche, the Drôme, the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Vaucluse, where the temperatures were already raised on Sunday afternoon.
These departments should cross a “new scorching episode, whose intensity and duration will be less than those of the previous episode”, specifies Météo-France. The other ten departments of the south-eastern quarter of France were placed in yellow alert. The Gard was also placed on Saturday, for the first time of the season, in “extreme danger” level for the risk of forest in the Rhodanian Gard area.
France has already been struck by several magnitude fires since the beginning of the summer. Nearly 21,000 hectares were ravaged in Gironde while 1,600 hectares burned in a fire south of Avignon, in Provence, mid-July. In the neighboring department of Hérault, a fire that had started on Tuesday, about twenty kilometers from Montpellier, destroyed 800 hectares of vegetation, while 1,200 hectares were destroyed in Ardèche the same week.