"We're going to war now. If some of you don't feel up to it, get out." The fire chief delivered these solemn words to his team as they entered the estate managed by Arnaud Gassier and his father in Bages, a few kilometers from Narbonne, in southern France. When the 28-year-old winemaker repeated them to us two days later, it was as if the wall of flames he had witnessed at that moment rose before him once again. Gassier was supposed to guide the firefighters through his Haute-Fontaine estate and then evacuate, but the flames encircling his property forced him to remain with the firefighters at the height of the disaster on Monday, July 7.

That day, the young man had spotted a curtain of smoke above the hills behind his home after lunch. Thirty minutes later, the sky turned orange, and within an hour, the fire was heading straight for him, giving him just enough time to leave.

"What I experienced then was a war," Grassier said. "For the second time in my life, I felt the power of nature. The first time was during a hurricane in Guadeloupe. This time, it was the flames. Those moments were fascinating, but frightening as well," said the winemaker, who thought he would lose the property he purchased four years ago, from which the first Gassier vintage is set to be released this year. "Monday evening, there were four Canadair [firefighting] planes above us, but we couldn't even see them, because the fire was everywhere and the smoke was so thick. The fire trucks drove through walls of flames to save our buildings," he explained, expressing gratitude to those who fought to save his property.

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