The soldiers of the fire will be able to blow. The violent fire which affected Argelès-sur-Mer and destroyed a campsite in the Pyrénées-Orientales between August 14 and 16 was officially declared extinct on Sunday, according to the department’s firefighters.
“After several days of collaboration between the firefighters and the RISC (Communal Civil Security Reserves) for the treatment of fumaroles, the COS (rescue operations commander) passed fire extinguished”, tweeted Sunday evening the Departmental Service of Fire and Rescue Services (SDIS) 66 on the X network. The RISCs are made up of volunteers who survey the forest massifs to prevent possible outbreaks of fire and carry out prevention.
The fire ravaged a total of 500 hectares
The fire which, in addition to Argelès-sur-Mer, had affected the neighboring towns of Saint-André and Sorède, covered a total of 500 hectares. Some 650 firefighters, some from other departments, and air resources had been mobilized to fight the fire which started late Monday afternoon in Saint-André, about twenty kilometers south-east of Perpignan. .
About 3,000 people, mostly vacationers, were evacuated as a precaution on Monday evening, but most were able to return to their campsites a few hours later. Some 300 of them had however spent the night from Monday to Tuesday in a gymnasium in Argelès, the time to organize themselves to leave, or to find a place in a campsite or a hotel in the city.