Un campsite was destroyed in Argelès-sur-Mer during a fire which covered 480 hectares in the Pyrénées-Orientales during the night from Monday to Tuesday, and more than 300 holidaymakers are waiting in a gymnasium to be relocated or to go home.
The fire, which also affected the municipalities of Saint-André and Sorède, causing the evacuation of a total of 3,000 people on Monday evening from several campsites, “is fixed, stabilized”, the prefect told AFP on Tuesday morning. Rodrigue Furcy, present at the gymnasium.
The flames hit 30 homes and penetrated eight of them, while a warehouse was “heavily impacted”, as was one of the campsites, he said.
In the gymnasium of Argelès-sur-Mer, camp beds have been installed. Some people, including children, were still sleeping there at the end of the morning, noted an AFP journalist.
Others are chatting or drinking water, sitting at long tables, or queuing for information from a support cell.
At the entrance to the gymnasium, a small group speaks with the prefect and the mayor of Argelès, Antoine Parra, to whom the holidaymakers relate the problems they face after their hasty evacuation.
“We help them to project themselves on the future. We are at their side to help them in their choices and their steps”, affirms Mr. Furcy.
“Nightmare”
“We are here to collect their grievances. Some are in anguish”, “their good weather has turned into a nightmare”, adds Mr. Parra.
In front of the gymnasium, Laetitia Richard recounts her disaster departure from the Chênes Rouges campsite, devastated by the flames.
“We were coming back from a walk and we saw the smoke. We said to ourselves, + it’s not possible! +. Already last year, we were in Gironde, but 30 km from the fire. This time it’s was very close,” she told AFP.
“We loaded what we could and we left. We are alive, that’s the main thing”, adds this 39-year-old woman, who came from Sables-d’Olonne, in Vendée, with her husband and his two children spend holidays in Argelès.
“We were in the swimming pool and we saw smoke and ashes. When I saw the planes, we took our things,” testifies Stéphanie Bodinier, 49, who lives near Angers, and came to vacation with her husband and daughter.
There were no casualties among the population. According to civil security, a firefighter from SDIS 66 was seriously injured. Nineteen others were slightly injured after inhaling the fumes, according to the prefecture.
A total of some 650 firefighters and air resources were mobilized to fight this fire, which started late Monday afternoon in Saint-André.
Bordering Spain, Pyrénées-Orientales is the French department most affected by drought. The fire risk is very high there, recalls the prefect. “We have several fire starts per day,” he says.
“Increased drought”
“The Pyrénées-Orientales have suffered from an increased drought since the beginning of the year, they are on drought red vigilance. Many preventive actions have been carried out by the firefighters. However, departures have been noted, which shows that the sector is a real powder keg”, analyzes Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for the National Federation of Firefighters of France.
An investigation has been opened to determine the origin of the fire, unknown for the time being, and has been entrusted to the Céret research brigade, the gendarmerie said on Tuesday.
The Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, is due to go to the Pyrénées-Orientales on Tuesday afternoon in order “to establish an initial assessment (rehousing, impacted homes), visit one of the campsites, discuss with the mobilized agents” , according to his office.
“On the spot, the situation remains tense and reconnaissance continues,” notes the minister’s office.
The Minister Delegate in charge of Territorial Communities, Dominique Faure, must also go there to, according to her cabinet, make “an initial assessment of the damage (…) to stand alongside the families strongly impacted” and “to show her support (…) to the civil security forces who were heroic in the face of this fire”.
08/15/2023 13:00:28 – Argelès-sur-Mer (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
