On the night of Monday August 14 to Tuesday August 15, a fire ravaged 500 hectares between Argelès-sur-Mer, Saint-André and Sorède. In addition to the material damage, the environmental balance sheet is important. The site is transformed for years. This is shown by a satellite photo taken the day after the tragedy.
On the ground, the landscape is lunar, gloomy as after each fire. Low vegetation is scorched, trees are either charred or stressed and damaged, and the scorched earth looks like ash.
It usually takes two years to know if the trees that have not completely perished in the flames will recover and regenerate.
Seen from the sky, or rather from space, the situation seems less catastrophic. Yet the scale of the environmental impact is very clear.
A history-geo teacher compares two satellite photos of the same area taken, one before the fire and the other after, on the social network X (ex-Twitter). What to realize the extent of the disaster.
The photo on the left, taken on August 10, shows the Argelès sector before the fire, the one on the right was taken less than 24 hours after the tragedy, i.e. August 15. We discover very clearly drawn in the landscape, the traces of fire on the vegetation in black.
Satellites to monitor the environment
We owe this shot to a satellite flying over our country at an altitude of nearly 800 kilometers.
In this photo, here are the two areas where fire starts were recorded between August 10 and 16. 10 in total.
Pyrénées-Orientales – area between Argelès and Saint-André, where 10 outbreaks of fire were recorded between August 10 and 16, 2023. • © Copernicus
Sentinel-2 is a series of Earth observation satellites owned by the European Space Agency and developed under the Copernicus program. The first two copies were put into orbit in 2015 and 2017.
The objective of the program is to provide European countries with complete and up-to-date data enabling them to carry out environmental monitoring and surveillance.
They must provide high-resolution optical imagery allowing the observation of soils (land use, vegetation, coastal areas, rivers, etc.) as well as the treatment of emergency situations such as natural disasters (floods, fires, etc.). ).
As the gendarmerie investigation begins to determine the causes and origin of the fire, for the mayor of Argelès-sur-Mer, the criminal act is beyond doubt.
All these fire starts, twenty on the sector, for two months, are due to one and the same person, most certainly.
Antoine Parra, mayor of Argelès-sur-Mer.
For the mayor of Saint-André, very angry, the area where the fire started was little or not maintained. For him, the reason for the rapid spread of the fire is the fault of some residents who did not clear enough brush. He denounces the laxity of local residents when last February, then in April, he sent a letter to his constituents asking them to respect the obligation to clear brush around their homes as required by law.
“Of the 300 couriers, only about 150 people replied and correctly cut the ferns, the low branches” he explains at the microphone of our colleagues from France bleu Roussillon.
I believe that the people I have informed and contacted have their share of responsibility for the magnitude of this fire. If all the inhabitants had properly cleared their land, we would not be here. These people are responsible.
Samuel Moli, mayor of Saint-André.
France Blue Roussillon
The elected official decided to lodge a complaint, for endangering the lives of others, against the inhabitants of Saint-André who did not respect this obligation.
According to clearing regulationsif you have not or not cleared enough brush and this has allowed the spread of a fire which has destroyed the property of others, you can be sentenced to a penalty of up to one year in prison and 15,000 euros in ‘fine.
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