One of the biggest fires of the year, which broke out on Sunday afternoon, August 18, in the Hérault department, southwestern France, was "contained but not extinguished" by firefighters overnight. Lieutenant-Colonel Jérôme Bonnafoux, spokesman for the Hérault fire department, told Le Monde late Monday afternoon that it had stopped spreading after ravaging 350 hectares of pine forest.

The fire started in the village of Gigean, 150 meters from the A9 freeway. It then moved toward the Gardiole mountains, a popular destination for hikers, destroying an unoccupied dwelling along the way, without causing any injuries. "The drought that has been ongoing since the start of summer is starting to take its toll," said Bonnafoux. "Driven by the wind, fanned by the heat and the vegetation, this fire spread on Sunday at a speed of 4 kilometers per hour, which is tremendous."

Nearly 600 firefighters were deployed on Sunday, and between "120 and 150 more will remain on duty overnight [Monday to Tuesday] and likely into Tuesday due to numerous hot spots that pose a risk of flare-ups," he said. Two drones, equipped with thermal imaging cameras, are flying over the area to identify these notorious hot spots, allowing ground teams to address them.

According to Hérault prefect François-Xavier Lauch, who visited Frontignan on Sunday, a town of 24,000 inhabitants nestled between the Gardiole hills and the Bassin de Thau, southwest of Montpellier, this fire is "the biggest of the season in the department." It is also one of the country's most destructive this year, after the fire that destroyed 600 hectares in the Var department, in June.

So far, the summer of 2024 has been relatively spared by fires compared to previous years, the outgoing interior minister Gérald Darmanin was keen to point out, as he traveled to Frontignan late Monday morning. "There haven't been many wildfires since the start of the season, with about 4,000 hectares burned, compared to 12,000 hectares at the same time last year," he said, pointing out that "nine out of 10 fires are caused by human activity."

The situation had been even more dire in the summer of 2022, with "60,000 hectares going up in smoke," said the outgoing minister for the ecological transition, Christophe Béchu, who also described it as a "relatively merciful summer so far." "This is an opportunity to call on our fellow citizens to be vigilant over the coming weeks, in order to keep the damage to vegetation and ecosystems at this low level," he said during the same trip.

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