Since the 2023 law, mayors are responsible for monitoring and controlling this obligation in 43 departments and 7,000 municipalities, mainly in Occitanie. Recalcitrant owners are exposed to prosecution and hefty fines.
Clearing, “which is not sufficiently implemented”East “a seat belt”, defined Isabelle Bertrand, project manager at the Ministry of Agriculture. And to tie it better, the belt, the 1985 legislation became tougher for recalcitrant owners. There is an obligation to cut wild grass and other shoots within a radius of 50 meters around one’s home, Christophe Chantepy of the ONF explained during an exchange with the press. This means that, sometimes, you have to do it at a neighbor’s house to “respect continuous brush clearing, the responsibility of which falls primarily on the owner who has a property, a house to defend against the risk of fire”.
Fine of €1,500, and €50 per square meter not weeded
If the neighbor refuses, what is the recourse? Whether it is the owner or the recalcitrant neighbor, it is the same principle: the mayor of the municipality, “responsible for monitoring and control”can be seized and its services can bring the matter before the prefect and/or the courts to carry out the work in their place, ex officio. These owners face a fine of €1,500 and also €50 per square meter of land not cleared.
90% of fires are of human origin
And the best time to do this work is when nature is resting, in autumn and winter, now, that is. “In recent years, fires of unprecedented scale have ravaged numerous areas in Greece, Portugal, Canada, USA, etc. And France was not spared.” No less than 7,000 municipalities in 43 departments are affected by a significant risk of fire, including primarily in Occitanie. And climate change and the expansion of inhabited areas should increase this risk, knowing that 90% of fires are of human origin and 10% due to lightning. And that “nine out of ten houses destroyed by fire are on land that is not or poorly cleared.”
Information on clearing brush from the first visit to a house
From January 1, 2025, this legal obligation for territories subject to the risk of clearing out these grasses which are the primary fuel of a fire will be written in black and white. “During the first visit to a property to rent or sell”, underlined Isabelle Bertrand, project manager at the Ministry of Agriculture, specifying that “10,800 fire outbreaks were counted this year”.
French forests in poor condition
And that “These fires often start near homes located on the borders of wooded areas. This is thanks to feedback, for example from the Gonfaron fire (Var), in 2021, where 740 houses were impacted {and 7,000 hectares charred because of a cigarette butt, Editor’s note} that we can affirm this.” She added that 10,000 community staff were trained in 2023. to the new provisions of the law of July 2023 on fire risks.
Clearing bushes is another tool added to the desire for better control of urbanization; to the improvement of the “risk culture”. Especially when we know that the French forest has expanded by a third in a century, representing 17 million hectares but that it is often in a degraded state, even in decline, due to successive droughts and parasitic attacks. . The forest – the timber sector is worth 13 billion euros – but also the moors, the maquis, it is a protection of biodiversity, a significant carbon sink (2nd after the oceans), etc. Without forgetting the social function: one in two French people go there at least once a month.
Olivier SCHLAMA
