Gardiole fire of August 18, 2024: feedback to consider the future

After the fire of August 18, 2024, the largest recorded in mainland France last year and which ravaged 310 ha of the Gardiole massif, a public meeting was organized in Frontignan la Peyrade, on January 15, 2025, in order to present , to a full room, a first assessment of the consequences of this fire at the material, human and environmental level as well as the prevention strategies to apply to limit the risk of fire and promote the return of nature.

The public meeting brought together 120 people eager to learn more about the aftermath of the Gardiole fire, stopped at the gates of the muscatiere town last summer. After the welcome and introductory speech by Michel Arrouy, mayor of Frontignan la Peyrade and community councilor, accompanied by Loïc Linares, municipal councilor responsible for sustainable development and democratic transition, 2^e vice-president of Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée, and by Olivier Laurent, deputy mayor responsible for ecological transition, risk prevention and air quality, the various representatives of the National Forestry Office (ONF), of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) and Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée took the floor to share with the audience the assessment of the fire which destroyed 204 ha of scrubland in the commune of Frontignan la Peyrade as well as the factors causing the damage. In the second part of the meeting, the question of management of burned areas was addressed, between diagnostics of the sectors to be secured, cleared, and measures to prevent fire risk at the level of communities and citizens.

Indeed, the urgency is to fell dangerous trees, to identify unstable blocks of stone (with the installation of panels, fascines or fences) and to identify homes and buildings which could suffer from erosion. soil generated by the fire.

Then, from this first post-fire winter, it is necessary to evacuate dead wood and felled trees, particularly in the context of clearing and creating partitions, access corridors reserved for emergency vehicles. . Under certain conditions, the private owners concerned can ask the National Forest Property Center (CNPF) Occitanie to evacuate their burned wood. This phase of wood exploitation will be launched in January for three months with a maximum deadline set at June 15, 2025. As for clearing, it remains obligatory for all owners of land located less than 200 meters from areas exposed to the risk of fire.

Finally, the stage of rehabilitation of the scrubland will come to return to a natural space as rich and diverse as it was before the fire. A landscape analysis will make it possible to determine the tree species to favor, the need to reforest this or that sector, the cutting of certain species to encourage regrowth (or coppicing), etc.

A next information meeting on Legal Clearing Obligations (OLD) will be held in Frontignan la Peyrade on January 28, 2025, Salle Voltaire at 6 p.m.