More resources. This is what the French firefighters are asking for. This is the start of their national congress in Nancy this Wednesday. The fires this summer showed that the means to fight forest fires were insufficient. We are this morning with the director of SDIS 21 Régis Deza.
The situation has calmed down on the fire brigade front, that’s it, and that’s okay. Have all the Côte-d’Or firefighters who left to reinforce returned left and right this summer?
Yes, the 262 firefighters who have departed fourteen times throughout most of France have returned and were recently received by the chairman of the departmental council to thank them for the investment. They have all really had a hard physical or moral experience, but all with a need, a feeling of having helped and served. And everyone has learned. Everyone has learned that taking risks is difficult. It was something quite disproportionate to climate change and that could happen on our doorstep. So the experience gained elsewhere will certainly help us try to prepare ourselves to be even more efficient.
What lessons did you draw from it? There will be new equipment, a new organization, how will it work?
We have been modeling what was happening in the south of France for years already. That is to say that in the context of forest fires, the treatment of the incipient fire and the fact of putting many means from the beginning to be able to stop the fire as part of its spread, has been implemented throughout the summer and mainly the week of August 15th when we had these famous times when we were very at risk and between ten and twelve fires during the day. So, we already had it in us and we had already treated it. We also tackled the problem of drought and the availability of drinking water. We realized that if we hit the water towers to put out the fire, people would no longer be able to drink clean water. So we also need to think about where we will get the water.
You obviously have professional firefighters. You also work with volunteer firefighters. Do you still need it there right now, in the Côte d’Or?
Rurality or extreme rurality means that there are fewer volunteer firefighters during the day in rural areas. Because the jobs are not there, because things are further away and people are moving to get to work, all of which means that nearly a third of the volunteer fire brigade rescue centers are desperately available during the day. so in order to have people available today, you need to recruit in specific age groups. You have to train, you have to find the specialties. And then people, above all, must want to come and help and support their fellow citizens.
Where do you need volunteers in particular?
Currently all the rescue centers need it because we have a problem, a logic of numbers. I told you before, but we also have people who retire, people who have professional mobility, who have to leave. These renewal rates need to be addressed and even more so later in rural areas.
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