After eight years of investigation, the fire in Gabian (Hérault), in August 2016, where firefighter Jérémy Beier died from his injuries, will lead to the judgment of five firefighters, including the former boss of Sdis 34 Christophe Risdorfer, for equipment and command malfunctions.
“It’s a big step, it’s a relief… Finally a trial! Even if we don’t have the date yet, I’ve been waiting for this for so long…”
Brigitte Beier is moved to tears. The mother of Jérémy, a Sdis 34 firefighter who died in the Gabian fire (Hérault), at the end of summer 2016, does not hide her emotion at the time when the investigating judge has just issued his order referral to the judicial court of Béziers.
Five firefighters will be tried for involuntary manslaughter and involuntary injuries. Headed by the former boss of Sdis 34, the general controller Christophe Risdorfer
but also the deputy head of the technical and logistics group at the time, for the defective equipment part.
Several dismissals of indictment
For alleged operational faults on the ground (deployment, positioning, evacuation, safety water releases) the sector leader, the group leader and the fire air resources coordinator will also be judged. They all contest their criminal responsibility.
More than eight years after the tragedy, the judge’s analysis, based on the colossal work of the gendarmes, is damning for the chain of command of the Hérault firefighters, even if several officers benefit from a dismissal of the case.
Self-protection doesn’t work, they flee into the flames
It harks back to another time, when we could let firefighters go into combat in an obsolete truck at the risk of sending them to their death. This is what happened on August 10, 2016, when a cigarette butt, an unconscious and stupid gesture, set 200 hectares of scrubland ablaze, in a fire fanned by the tramontane in the west of Hérault, in Gabian and Roquessels.
Among the four forest fire trucks involved, the CFF3. Inside, Jérémy, Lucas, Didier and David find themselves surrounded by flames. The self-protection system, supposed to water their machine, does not work. The four firefighters, no longer able to stand the infernal heat, fled, at random, into the smoke and fire. Jérémy, 24, died a few days later in hospital. His comrades in misfortune escaped miraculously but with burns of 18%, 38% and 40% of the surface of the body. The fault is the defective CCF3.
Sdis officials were able, for a time, to blame the victims: Jérémy Beier, at the wheel, allegedly stalled, which would have blocked self-protection; or the quartet would have rushed out instead of staying in the truck.
“The trial of shame for those who blamed the victims” The magistrate torpedoes this line of defense. He notes the“collection of multiple concordant testimonies from all Sdis personnel on the existence of a chronic and recurring malfunction of the CCF3 self-protection system”
. And drives home the point: “If a human error by Jérémy Beier could have been mentioned, this assertion is not only contradicted by the three CCF3 firefighters mentioning that he had reacted calmly and respected the procedure but also by the conclusions of the technical expert report “
asserts the magistrate. What, again, relieves Brigitte Beier and the relatives of the deceased who suffered from this indictment: “I know he didn’t make a mistake, it’s written in black and white”
she tells us. “We have been waiting for eight years, it will necessarily be the trial of shame for some who had questioned the behavior of the victims”
denounces Me Luc Abratkiewicz, lawyer for the civil parties.
Three cumulative malfunctions in the victims’ forest fire truck
“Today, this poor defense system is swept aside by numerous investigations which demonstrate that the facts are due to serious negligence and non-compliance with safety rules.” The judge establishes criminal liability by noting that
“very numerous hearings, the dysfunction of the self-protection of the CCF3 was well known to the hierarchy of the Sdis”. Worse, in this truck,
“three malfunctions combined: failure of self-protection, of the radio system and the lack of sealing against smoke and gas due to wear and insufficient maintenance of its joints and its structure.”
A few months after the tragedy, Sdis 34 renovated and renewed all its trucks.
“We are not cannon fodder” “I have no hatred, it is not voluntary and I trust in justice. The sanctions do not matter to me, but five people are being referred to court and I just hope that they will accept the facts and do not hide behind lost causes to exonerate yourself”
reacts Didier, one of the three survivors.
“The goal is that it doesn’t happen again, we have to learn from it.”
Lucas, who lost his ten fingers and was disfigured in Gabian, says nothing else. “We were sent to the doom, but I’m not angry anymore” indicates the firefighter, concerned about a better use of public funds in rescue equipment,
“so as not to have such a tragedy again.” Finally, David, forty-year-old and eldest of the disastrous CFF3, says to himself“satisfied but bitter”
understanding that certain officers of the hierarchy, indicted, are not prosecuted.
Two: the command problem “contradicted by the general inspection report.” Sdis specifies, however, that the call”does not in any way relate to compensation paid to victims.”
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