NOS | Frank Renout Burnt-out car wreck near Bordeaux
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 19:29
Frank Renout
correspondent France
Frank Renout
correspondent France
In order to contain forest fires and to save houses, a strip of 50 meters must be ‘shrub-free’ between French houses and forests. At least that’s what the law says. In practice, this does not happen in many places, with all the associated risks.
A year ago there was still a house against the Dune du Pilat, the famous sand dune southeast of Bordeaux. Now only the chimney remains, with burnt-out car wrecks next to it. The trees around the house have almost all burned down.
This area was hit by historically large forest fires last summer. In a week’s time, 20,000 hectares were reduced to ashes. Five campsites along the Dune du Pilat burned down completely. Thousands of people were evacuated.
Pruning obligation: 50 meters free
“We had to start from scratch, everything had to be rebuilt,” says Franck Couderc, director of Les Flots Bleus campsite. That campsite was the first to reopen this spring. There are tents, caravans and houses again and the pétanque court is open again.
But around the brand new rebuilt campsite there is still vegetation everywhere. The holiday homes are adjacent to trees, shrubs and bushes. And that is not allowed, because of the legally established shrub-free strip of 50 meters. This prevents fire from spreading and offers the fire brigade an access route.
“One in five campsites is in a risk area for forest fires,” writes the French camping federation FNHPA in a report that appeared this spring. Campsite owners are explicitly informed of the rules for removing vegetation. “That is mandatory and is the responsibility of the administrator.” The pruning obligation applies in places with a lot of forest, in almost half of all French departments.
Lack of controls
“We are checked by the fire brigade every two years,” says camping owner Couderc. But the fire brigade only looks at the site. The municipality must check whether the strip of 50 meters around it has been cleared.
Nothing has been removed from Les Flots Bleus. If a new forest fire breaks out, the campsite is again in a risk area for spreading fire. The municipal council of La Teste-de-Buch, where the campsite is located, must therefore enforce and possibly fine, but that does not happen. The municipality does not want to respond to questions from the NOS about this.
NOS | Frank Renout Fire-affected forest south of Bordeaux
There are campsites in or next to forests throughout the area below Bordeaux. Houses are among the trees. And almost nowhere have shrubs been removed around buildings. If a fire breaks out, the fire can spread unhindered, just like last year.
At the end of last year, the French Senate investigated. The pruning requirement was referred to as a crucial means against forest fires. But, “The number of people keeping to duty is often less than 30 percent, depending on the region,” the Senate concluded.
“There are very few people who prune and very few municipalities who control,” say officials in the Gironde, where Bordeaux is located. “Residents say they don’t know the rules. Mayors say they don’t know they have to check.”
A national information campaign was organized for the first time this spring. More than 2 million households received a folder about the pruning obligation.
A month ago, a law was passed in parliament to tighten the penalties for offenders. The fines for growing shrubs will increase from 30 to 50 euros per square meter.
Increasing risk
In Saint-Symphorien, south of Bordeaux, the pruning obligation has been rigorously applied. Mayor Bruno Gardère had an entire strip of forest cut down along houses on the outskirts of his municipality. “One and a half kilometers long and 40 meters wide. That’s 6 hectares of forest that we felled.” It is a kind of bare buffer, like a moat around a castle, to ward off the enemy.
NOS | Frank RenoutPruned forest in the town of Saint-Symphorien, south of Bordeaux
“The trees were here last year up to people’s gardens. When the forest fires broke out, the fire brigade couldn’t even reach them. It was life-threatening.”
So the trees had to give way. The municipality paid. “I can’t force individual residents to remove everything from 50 meters around their house? I have residents here on the edge of the forest who are 90 years old: how are they supposed to do that? And we as a small municipality have no resources at all to check all houses and gardens.”
The felling was badly needed, the mayor thinks. “With climate change and drought, wildfires remain a risk, and may be an increasing risk.”
Across France, 72,000 hectares of forest and nature reserves were burned to ashes last year by more than 19,000 fires. That made it one of the worst years in decades.
And the danger no longer only lurks in southern areas such as the Gironde or Provence. “The risk of forest fires now exists in almost the entire country,” the Ministry of the Interior said.
2023-07-30 17:29:26
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