The fire which has ravaged 7,400 hectares of forest since August 9 near Landiras, south of Bordeaux, is “now fixed”, announced Sunday the sub-prefect of Arcachon, Ronan Leaustic. “Finally the night was favorable to us. Instead, we had rain and very little wind (…) These conditions allowed us to establish that the situation was extremely favorable and that the fire was now fixed,” he explained to the press.
The situation improved in the area during the night from Saturday to Sunday with the arrival of precipitation and a drop in temperatures. “We must have had a dry storm, we had heavy rain,” rejoiced Marc Vermeulen, director of the Gironde firefighters, during the press briefing. However, he called for “the greatest caution” stressing that “a fixed fire does not mean an extinguished fire”.
“Even if the security conditions are met to reintegrate the area, the interior of the forest is not secure. It is strictly forbidden to enter the forest, ”recalled the director of the fire department. For the rest, “the weather is favourable, in the sense that there is a decrease in temperatures at least until Thursday”, added Marc Vermeulen. On the ground, the number of firefighters mobilized should drop below 1,000 “in the next few hours”.