Marc Sezyk, territorial forest fire referent at the ONF for the Eastern defense zone (bringing together Grand Est and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté), reminds us: the 2022 fires in the Jura or the Vosges were not “absolutely not predictable”. Following this, the ONF’s general interest mission concerning fires was “reinforced” in the north and east of the country. This involves requests linked to knowledge of the terrain during droughts, or monitoring missions of massifs with pick-up vehicles equipped with small water tanks, he lists.
For Commander Schulz, one of the challenges to be met is prevention among the population: “Nine out of ten fires are of human origin and there is a real need to trigger a culture of risk” in the East. In Moselle, stickers have been placed at the entrance to forest areas to raise awareness among walkers, while partnerships with the Chamber of Agriculture make it possible to provide advice to operators.
The challenge is that this acculturation happens quickly “especially in a context where we can clearly see that leisure in nature, the desire to bivouac, the desire to spend the night in the forest, etc. multiplies”, notes Rodolphe Pierrat, assistant to the territorial director of the ONF Grand Est. We must also be able to intervene as early as possible on fires, which implies knowledge of the typology of forest roads, data that was completely non-existent a few years ago, little by little created by the different services.
The East, theater of the Great War, is also studying the “red zone”: munitions hidden almost everywhere in the ground, particularly Meuse, with the territories concerned not yet mapped, and questions as to how these could react. ammunition buried in the ground for more than a century in contact with fire.
