French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that 308 people have been detained nationwide over the wildfire outbreak, with two-thirds suspected of "deliberate arson". The announcement came as the blaze near Bordeaux showed signs of easing and Ukraine dispatched 70 rescuers to help battle the fires still burning across France.
Speaking to RTL radio, Nunez gave further detail on the scale of the crackdown. "That is obviously a very high figure, especially considering that two-thirds of the arrests are for criminal acts, namely intentional arson," he said.
Of those detained, 33 have been incarcerated – "either in pre-trial detention awaiting judgment or already convicted," Nunez added, some of them receiving "actual prison time."
Yet arson accounts for only part of the picture. Nine out of ten fires are caused by human activity overall, with lightning responsible for a significant proportion of the remaining 10 percent – and according to preliminary investigation findings, the season's largest fires in France were in fact accidental in origin
The fire engulfing 42,000 hectares near Bordeaux, in southwestern France, may have been sparked by brush-clearing work beneath a power line, carried out by a contractor for Enedis.
The simultaneous fire in the Landes region, near Biscarrosse, was ignited by a vehicle fire on a departmental road.
As for the fire that ravaged part of the Fontainebleau forest, southeast of Paris, the Fontainebleau public prosecutor said that repair work on a motorway guardrail – specifically a spark from a petrol-powered angle grinder – reportedly ignited the vegetation and, subsequently, the forest bordering the A6 motorway.
Optimistic day
Early on Friday, authorities announced that the massive fire near Bordeaux had stabilised, thanks to "favourable" overnight conditions.
The improvement followed what Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas described as an "optimistic day" on Thursday, adding: "the feeling that we are beginning to return to normal life."
Firefighting chief Marc Vermeulen said hotspots in the wildfire zone had dropped from six to three since Thursday morning, but remained cautious.
"It will depend on how the terrain reacts, the number of remaining flare-ups that emerge, and also on the weather conditions we will face over the coming days," he told reporters.
With the spread now largely contained, more than half of the 224,000 people evacuated have been able to return to their homes in 12 municipalities to the northwest and south of Bordeaux.
The wildfires have destroyed more than 200 homes and killed at least three firefighters.
Ukraine sends reinforcements
Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Friday it had dispatched a team of 70 rescuers to help battle the blazes in France.
"This morning, Ukrainian rescuers set off for France to help combat forest fires," Ukraine's Interior Minister Ivan Vygivsky said in a social media post.
"A combined unit of 70 rescuers and 15 specialised vehicles has been dispatched," he added.
He said their "unique" experience dealing with the aftermath of Russian drone and missile strikes meant they were well equipped to work "in extremely challenging conditions."
Scientists attribute the record-breaking heat to climate change and say Europe, the fastest-warming continent, could face a tenfold increase in extreme fires this century.
Southern Europe is "becoming more flammable," with the number of summer days primed for extreme fire conditions more than doubling since 1981, according to a new study released on Thursday.
The sharp rise in the frequency of fire weather – characterised by searing temperatures, low humidity, dryness and strong winds – "can only be attributed to global warming," said study co-author Raul Cordero, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, in comments to the French news agency AFP.
(with AFP)
