In Hérault, firefighters can count on the solidarity of farmers. An agreement, signed on July 3 by the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) and the peasant federations of the department, allows firefighters to have access, if necessary, to raw water reserves not used by local farmers. A precious resource, as the sad forest fire season has started, in a department plagued by severe drought.
The objective of the Hérault department and its president, Kléber Mesquida (PS), was, when this system was initiated, to “preserve drinking water”, explains to 20 minutes Aurélien Manenc, lieutenant-colonel of the fire brigade. “What we want is to avoid, when possible, going to use the red fire hydrants, which pump drinking water, and that flattens the basins. It wasn’t reasonable. »
Reservoirs that farmers no longer use
The reservoirs ceded by the Hérault farmers to the firefighters are not the ones they usually use to water their crops or water their livestock. These are disused tanks, which they no longer use, and which the fire soldiers will fill regularly with water recovered from the rivers, or “when the swimming pools are emptied, during the annual emptying”, indicates Aurelien Manenc. Of course, the services of Sdis have started important work, to put on these tanks “the fittings that go well, to be as efficient as possible”, continues the lieutenant-colonel.
About fifty farmers and agricultural structures in the Hérault have already offered firefighters access to their disused water reservoirs. But this partnership is not only a way of saving drinking water, at a time when resources are fragile. With this device, the firefighters hope to bring to 200 the number of water points to which they have access, in the department. This is a good way to facilitate their interventions. When there is a fire very close to a farm or a winery which has agreed to make tanks available to the fire brigade, water trucks will be able to make faster round trips to the site of the fire.
“It allows us to have a much more effective network”
“It considerably strengthens our network, it allows us to have a much more effective network, continues Aurélien Manenc. Obviously, when there is a fire on the banks of the Hérault or the Orb, there is a river not far away, but when it is on the plains or in Montpellier, it is more complicated. “Whereas with raw water tanks positioned here and there, interventions are much simpler for firefighters.
For farmers, this provision of disused vats is a way of “rendering a service to the community”, confides François-Régis Boussagol, president of the Independent Winegrowers of Hérault, and winegrower at the Saint-Jean de Conques estate, to Forty. “Personally, I have a cellar that I no longer use, if the firefighters need it, I leave them very willingly,” he confides to 20 minutes. They are provided with a key, so that they can access it 24 hours a day. »