The surroundings of the Hibiscus residence are calm this Monday, the day after the tragedy which affected this pavilion in Ousse-des-Bois, in Pau. It was in an area of a few parking spaces, bordering two terraced houses, that a man died on the night of Sunday 10 to Monday 11 November.
It was 10 p.m. when a witness said he saw this young man at the wheel of a car entering Rue des Bougainvilliers. He parked before emerging from the passenger compartment, his clothes on fire, a few moments later.
Shocked neighbors
A neighbor tried to help the unfortunate man. “I was walking into the neighborhood at the time and when I turned the corner, I saw a man on the ground, on fire, moaning and moving. I don’t know how I did it but I grabbed a blanket from my car and tried to turn it off. »
The witness said that the young man’s car had also caught fire: “The flames were rising very high.” The police, who intervened quickly, tried to help the victim, who died on the spot as a result of his injuries.
“Just talking about it brings back images, it’s violent”
The man, aged around sixty, is still shaken by what he saw: “It’s not nothing to see a human being burn before your eyes. Just talking about it brings back images, it’s violent. My wife, who is fragile, saw everything from the terrace up there, she is not well, I think she should talk to someone. »
Another neighbor, retired, does not understand what could have happened: “I have lived here with my family since 2004, we have never seen anything like this, it is very quiet here. » He shows how the PVC handles in his garage melted under the force of the fire. “The police worked all night in front of the house. »
A large black trace of fuel on the ground and a flow towards the gutter bear witness to the location of the vehicle, which has since been prohibited from entering. Above all, the almost 4 meter high palm tree which overlooks the parking lot is completely blackened, burned by the flames.
No camera
This Monday, some are wondering near the scene of the tragedy. Yassine knew the victim by sight: “He was a big guy, he wasn’t from here but from Dax. He wasn’t in business, I don’t know what happened. » If the 20-year-old young man does not believe it was an accident, he wonders about the circumstances of the tragedy.
“This corner of the neighborhood – Les Paves (for Pavilions) – is quiet, the people here have nothing to do. Why did it happen there? Afterwards, it’s the only place in Ousse where there are no cameras,” notes the young man who hopes that the police will “do a lot of work to find out what happened.”
The public prosecutor of Pau, Rodolphe Jarry, opened a preliminary investigation for murder, entrusted to the judicial police. However, he does not exclude “any hypothesis, whether accident or suicide”. An autopsy of the body will be carried out.
