A 16-year-old boy, suspected of being the cause of the fire which destroyed 30 hectares of forest in mid-June in the Vosges, was arrested and will be tried next September, the public prosecutor announced on Thursday. of Epinal. In a statement, prosecutor Frédéric Nahon announced that a minor had been arrested following a denunciation on Tuesday. The young man is suspected of having set fire to a house located on the edge of the forest, in order to remove the traces of a theft he had just committed there. He was reported by the father of a 15-year-old girl who had participated in the robbery.
Placed in police custody, the young man admitted his involvement “in the only acts of burglary”, according to the press release. He was presented before the juvenile judge, with a request for placement under judicial control and obligation to reside in a penal educational home for minors.
After several weeks of drought, the fire broke out on June 13 in the town of Bois-de-Champ, leading to the mobilization of nearly 200 men and a water bomber helicopter, who fought the flames until ‘on the next day. The young man will be tried before the Epinal children’s court on September 18 on the counts of “destruction by dangerous means” and “theft in a meeting with degradation”. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The teenager was summoned on the same date for charges of “meeting theft with damage”.