Le Loc, France | A major wildfire has erupted since Monday in the hinterland of the prestigious port of Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, causing the preventive evacuation of thousands of people, including many camping tourists.
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Thousands of people were evacuated as a precaution, but there were no injuries. About 750 firefighters are battling this blaze, which is still very fierce, a spokesman for firefighters from the Vars department, one of France’s most tourist attractions, said in August.
“The fire is still out of control at the moment,” added the director of firefighting communications at the command center in the town of Lok (Var). And the firefighters feared that the disaster would intensify during the day: due to rising temperatures and the appearance of fog, “the flame advanced at a speed of 4 km / h, while it is usually 1 km / h.”
“Half of the Blaine de Maurier Nature Reserve has been destroyed. It is a disaster, because it is one of the last. splatter Shelter Hermann’s turtle.
Commander Delphine Vinco told AFP that the evacuation of thousands of people took place in the outback of Cavaliers and Saint-Tropez, in particular around the villages of Grimaud or La Mole.
The Var Prefecture also confirmed the evacuation of several camp sites and asked to “decongest roads around the Bay of Saint-Tropez” to allow emergency services to operate, while traffic remains sensitive at this time of year. This year due to traffic congestion on small roads in the department.
This fire is considered one of the most important summer fires in a region traditionally exposed to fire risk, but has survived relatively in contrast to many countries around the Mediterranean in recent weeks (Greece, Italy, Algeria, Spain, Morocco).
According to the Prometheus database on forest fires in the Mediterranean region of France, the area burned in the four regions concerned was 2,336 hectares for the year 2021, compared to 7,698 hectares for the whole of 2020.
People are welcomed into town halls.
The fire that broke out on Monday in a motorway rest area on the A57, about 100 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Toulon, covered 3,500 hectares of forest and trees in the Massif de Maurice on Tuesday morning, according to firefighters.
“Other circumstances”
An AFP photographer from Le Loc noted a long streak of gray smoke clearly visible on the Moor carvings.
“This is the covered area, but it’s too early to estimate the burned area,” said the firefighters, who are resuming water drop operations by plane and helicopter as well as ground control means.
Firefighters came to reinforce several departments in southeastern France.
“We were able to prevent the fire from touching La Garde-Freinet during the night,” a village in the Massif des Maures, twenty kilometers from Saint-Tropez.
Southeastern France has been relatively spared so far, but this fire is one of the hottest of summer and could prove as devastating as the one that hit Mount Alaric in Aude at the end of July. . The biggest fire of summer in France, it destroyed about 850 hectares in total according to the latest report.
Last year, a fire destroyed 1,000 hectares in Martigues, west of Marseille, in a very touristy area. At least 2,700 people, including many tourists, had to be evacuated, some by sea.
The Mistral group that arrived in Provence on Monday fed several more fires at the entrance to the Calanques National Park near Marseille, or in the Var again, on the Jeans peninsula, but these fires have been brought under control.