Is France ready for a summer of increasingly severe wildfires?
A fire that broke out
close to Marseille on Tuesday morning
had by the evening "reached the gates" of the city, prompting the evacuation of 400 people, a 'stay at home' order for residents of one district and the closure of Marseille airport, train station and several major roads.
Meanwhile a fire further west down the Mediterranean coast, in Narbonne, prompted the closure of the A9 - the main road link with Spain - and the evacuation of several villages.
These are unlikely to be the last major fires of the summer due to tinder-dry conditions and further forecast heatwaves, and all départements along the southern coast remain on alert for wildfires.
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Scientists say that climate change is making the European
wildfire season longer
while increasing the geographical spread of fire risk zones and making the
heatwaves that are a major cause of fires
more likely.
So is France prepared to cope with ever worsening wildfire seasons?
Firefighting techniques
Wildfires in France - and all around the Mediterranean - are not new. In October 1970, 11 people died near France's far southeastern border with Italy, and in 1985 an inferno in the same area killed five volunteer firefighters.
Since then fires have become a lot less deadly, mostly due to improved firefighting techniques.
The basic technique is to catch fires before they spread - Grégory Allione, former head of the French firefighters' association and now an MP,
told French newspaper Le Parisien
that five hectares is the tipping point; if a fire spreads beyond that, it becomes very difficult to control and extinguish.
But he added that this technique has 'nipped in the bud' 5,900 fires already this year, and 20 in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône on Monday alone.
As the huge wildfire raged outside Marseille on Tuesday, numerous other small fires started in the surrounding area, all were extinguished before they had the chance to develop, and possibly join up with other blazes.
Technology improvements, especially in aerial firefighting techniques, have also made a big difference.
Senator Olivier Rietmann, co-author of a 2022 report calling for increased resources for firefighting, said: "With 12 Canadair firefighting planes, eight Dash (aircraft dropping red fire-retardant) and water-bombing helicopters, we have one of the best fire-fighting fleets in Europe, but our aircraft are ageing."
Some new planes have been ordered - at a cost of €60 million for each Canadair - and a fire service spokesman said the country will have 16 operational Canadairs by 2028.
France frequently loans its Canadairs to other countries to help battle blazes, usually in Europe but some also went to Los Angeles during the wildfires earlier this year.
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Tracking, warning and educating
But France has also made a big investment in tracking fires, especially after 2022 which was France's
worst wildfire year on record
. In total 72,000 hectares, or an area seven times the size of Paris, burned over that summer.
According to the
Office national des forêts
(ONF), the increase in fire prevention funding granted by the French government to the ONF in 2023 and 2024 has made it possible to "double the number of patrols for surveillance and first response to incipient fires, triple the number of patrols for surveillance and control of massifs, and increase by a factor of six the capacity to carry out checks on legal brush clearance obligations'.
Throughout the summer, at almost a hundred sites in France, the agents also carry out water surveys of the vegetation to determine the degree of dryness, and work with Météo France to calculate the level of fire danger.
"We also have at our disposal drones, satellite observations and even camera-equipped airplanes that can quickly identify fire outbreaks," added the ONF spokesman.
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This data is available to the public too - the app or website Feux de Fôret allows you to
track fires in real time
, while Météo France publishes a daily forecast of the wildfire risk level for each département during the summer.
READ ALSO
:
MAP: How to check for wildfire alerts in France✎
Local authorities have been given extra powers to ban activities known to cause fires, such as barbecues or fireworks, and it's common for forest areas or national parks to be closed to the public when the wildfire risk is high.
Rules for homeowners have
also been toughened up
- it's a legal requirement to clear vegetation and brush from the area around your property if you live in a wildfire risk zone, and fines can be levied against people who do not perform these duties.
There's also a major effort to educate the public, since 90 percent of wildfires are caused by human activity - either through deliberate arson or, more commonly, via careless behaviour.
The most common causes of wildfires are discarded cigarette butts, barbecues, bonfires or parking a vehicle on a grass verge (where the heat from the exhaust can cause parched grasses to catch fire).
Droughts and tree management
But despite all the fire-fighting efforts, criticism has been levelled at the management of France's forests, where the majority of major wildfires begin.
A 2024 report from the Cour des Comptes (audit court) criticised the way in which forest edges have been transformed over the past forty years as a result of agricultural abandonment, urbanisation and the development of tourist facilities.
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The court called on local mayors to better control developments in forest areas.
There's also concern that rules around clearing brush and vegetation from private homes are not enforced effectively.
Christophe Chantepy, forest fire expert with the ONF, said: "In 90 percent of cases, when a house burns down, it's because it hasn't been cleared, or has been cleared incorrectly.
"During the huge fires in Gironde in the summer of 2022, firefighters had difficulty penetrating some of the burning plots because of the dense vegetation and inaccessible access roads. They had to bulldoze their way through."
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