The fire in France, one of the largest in its history, has already burned 16,000 hectares

Paris.- The fire in France, which broke out on Tuesday afternoon in the Corbières massif, about thirty kilometers from the French city of Narbonne, has already burned 16,000 hectares, is one of the largest in the country's history.

The Prefecture announced this new figure shortly after 2:00 p.m. local time (12:00 GMT) and indicated that 1,900 firefighters with 500 vehicles are working on the ground in the 90-kilometer perimeter of the fire. The disaster caused the death last night of a woman in her sixties who refused to evacuate her house in Saint Laurent de la Cabrerisse and another person is missing in the same town, where two others were injured, one of them seriously. Seven other firefighters were slightly injured during the night, and to that must be added the accident of a fire truck that overturned this morning, with one seriously injured and three slightly injured, according to the sub-prefect of Narbonne, Rémi Recio. Recio explained that the firefighters working on the ground are being supported from the air by six Canadair-type seaplanes, three Dash water bombers, and three helicopters. In parallel, in the Aude department, 200 gendarmes have been deployed, partly from outside, among other things to manage the flow of vehicles that has been complicated by the closure of the A9 motorway, which goes to the Spanish border of La Jonquera, at the height of Rivesaltes, a few kilometers north of Perpignan. That cut of what is the main communication route with Spain has generated kilometers of traffic jams on the surrounding roads, through which drivers seek alternatives to continue their journey. The Prefecture of the Aude department, with its capital in Narbonne, has emphasized the rapid advance of the fire in the early hours, at a rate of 6 kilometers per hour, due to the wind. The Ministry of Ecological Transition has indicated in a statement that it is "the second most important fire in the last 50 years", and recalled that since 1976 only another one in 2022 had exceeded the threshold of 10,000 hectares. The burned surface in the Corbières massif since Tuesday is equivalent to what burned in all of France, respectively, in 2019, in 2020, in 2021 and in 2024, and twice that of 2023.

So far, the biggest fire that has occurred in this country, at least in recent times, burned 50,000 hectares of pine trees south of Bordeaux in 1949, a catastrophe in which 82 people also died.

In the summer of 2022, there were also two major fires south of Bordeaux that lasted for weeks and burned a total of 30,000 hectares. That year, a total of 72,000 hectares of woodland burned in France, six times more than the average of recent years.

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In his X account, French President Emmanuel Macron assured that "all the nation's resources have been mobilized" and showed his support for the firefighters and the rest of those working against the flames, as well as his confidence "in the Government and in the elected officials, fully committed". The Head of State has asked the population for "the utmost prudence and to respect the instructions of the authorities". This afternoon, the arrival of Prime Minister François Bayrou at the scene of the accident is scheduled.

The fire started around 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Tuesday next to a road in the municipality of Rebaute, which has led the spokesman for the French Gendarmerie, Lieutenant Colonel Erwan Coiffard, questioned on the France Info radio station, to say that there is little doubt about the human origin of the fire.

In fact, the mayor of Ribaute, Alain Coste, has pointed out on TF1 television that it could have been a cigarette butt: "It's incredible that people can be so inconsiderate."