More than 10,000 firefighters are currently mobilized to try to contain a series of fires affecting several French regions.
The European Union decided this Friday, August 12, to send to France two additional bomber planes, in addition to the four mobilized since Thursday, the European Commission said. “Today around noon, two European Canadairs based in Italy should arrive at the Bordeaux-Mérignac base. They will be ready today to help French firefighters fight the fire,” specifies Adina Revol, spokeswoman for the European Commission in France, on BFMTV.
After yesterday’s \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 request for assistance in battle #Forest fireswe ship 2 more planes over the #EUcivil defense Mechanism.
This is on 4 planes from the #rescEU Fleet from \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\uddf7 and \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddea and firefighting teams from \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea, \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf1\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\ uddf9 and \ud83c \uddf7\ud83c\uddf4. #EUsolidarity pic.twitter.com/aeIpSMqS4A
— Janez Lenarčič (@JanezLenarcic) August 12, 2022
In addition to these air reinforcements Ground reinforcements were also mobilized within the framework of this European solidarity mechanism. “This morning the first European reinforcements (the French firefighters) arrive on the ground,” announced the civil defense on Twitter.
\ud83d\udd25 Fighting despite difficult conditions #Forest fires continues for civilian security actors. In the air and on the ground, they protect the population and preserve our forests.
?\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa This morning the first European reinforcements arrived on the ground. pic.twitter.com/m5b9tR2pp6— Civil Security (@SecCivileFrance) August 12, 2022
The prefecture of the department announced on Twitter that 65 German firefighters from Bonn had already arrived in the Gironde on Thursday evening. A total of more than 350 German, Austrian, Polish and Romanian firefighters and a hundred vehicles are to gradually arrive in France, in particular to support the operation 1,100 firefighters are still on duty fighting the flames in the Gironde.
The Gironde has already faced two major fires in the past month (in Landiras, in the south of the department, and in La Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon), which have burned more than 20,000 hectares and left more than 36,000 people dead in two weeks evacuated. The ongoing fire is a resumption of the Landiras fire, which was never extinguished but continued to smolder before resuming Tuesday.