The figures are shocking. In 2022, 72,000 hectares were ravaged by fire in France, affecting 50 departments and forcing 60,000 people to evacuate.
The record for the area burnt has been broken, surpassing the previous record set in 2017, when 26,500 hectares were destroyed by fire. Climate change, which had long been predicted but not really taken seriously, has begun to wreak havoc. The combination of heat, drought and wind forms a deadly cocktail.
This Friday, Emmanuel Macron is visiting Nîmes Airport, which has been home to the civil protection base since 2017. No major announcements are expected; he will simply be repeating the speech he gave last October.
It is planned that the fleet of water-bombing aircraft will increase from 38 to 47, and that the number of firefighters funded by the Home Office will rise to 3,660. Although this represents an improvement, is it enough to tackle the growing challenge of fighting forest fires?
The departments along the Mediterranean coast have cause for concern. For years, local fire services – organised within the SDIS and funded by departmental councils and local councils – have had to spend their own money to make up for the state’s shortfalls. In 2022 alone, the Gard SDIS hired two water-bombing helicopters to tackle emerging fires. The cost for two months amounts to around €600,000.
In addition, local authorities have funded monitoring systems to prevent fires from starting, and the forest weather, presented as a new initiative, has already been trialled in the south of France. Whilst the provision of additional state funding is welcome, it will be necessary to go further and act more swiftly.