The firefighters thought they could save them, these poor campsites, backed by the Pilat dune, in La Teste-de-Buch (Gironde). But the flames got the better of them. “90% of the campsites in Pilat have burned down,” announced the prefect of the department, Fabienne Buccio, on Monday evening.
Among these five devastated tourist sites, the famous Flots Bleus, made famous by Frank Dubosc in the “Camping” trilogy. If the establishment is surprised by the good condition of the entrance, certain buildings and the mythical sign (…) still standing, “the interior of the campsite was almost completely destroyed by the violence of the fire”.
“We had won a battle with this campsite, is moved Sébastien Castel, deputy commander of the firefighters of Girond. The first fire attack was pushed back into the weekend. But the second, Monday, got the better of the site “because of the heat peak (over 40 degrees) and the wind, strong and turning and that day.
Bungalows, toys and remains of calcined aperitifs
No victim is to be deplored in the department. The 6,000 occupants of the campsites had been evacuated on Wednesday July 13. Since then, the firefighters have worked hard to protect them in accordance with their operational logic: “First people, then property, and finally the environment”, explains the firefighter.
The Flots Bleus campsite and the La Forêt du Pilat campsite feature desolate landscapes. The earth, still hot and smoking, is strewn with charred remains of essential accessories for a beautiful summer, abandoned in haste.
Here, tattered chairs, there a ping-pong table covered with ashes, over there, dishes, some food and a small white bicycle whose melted wheels and blackened frame testify to the power of the furnace passed through. here. The walls and foundations of most of the bungalows went up in smoke, leaving behind only the sheet metal of the roofs, victims of the torture of the flames and a few more or less recognizable debris: gas canisters, leftover aperitifs, toys from children.
The “guerrilla warfare” against the flames continues
After eight days of struggle, the soldiers of the fire are not at the end of their sentence. The prefect of Arcachon, Ronan Léaustic evoked a “presence foot by foot” of the soldiers of the fire. The firefighters carry out a “guerrilla war” in the words of Colonel Fabrice Haulas, head of the South-West territorial group of firefighters, because “as soon as we have a fairly tenuous forest-housing interface, we have to go house by house, neighborhood by piece “.
This Tuesday, at the end of the afternoon, the fires were under control in the sector, despite a few wisps of smoke escaping from debris and the combustion of a few tree stumps in the surrounding forest. The people here are no longer waiting for Patrick. No. What they are waiting for is the return of the rain.