LIVE - Fires: Flames have reached Marseille according to the prefect, the airport is closed and trains are at a standstill
- A fire broke out this Tuesday in the town of Pennes-Mirabeau, bordering Marseille. The flames spread quickly and have now reached the north of France's second-largest city. Residents are being urged to stay home. Marseille-Provence Airport, located in Marignane ( Bouches-du-Rhône ), was closed shortly after noon. More than 30 hectares have already been burned.
- On the outskirts of Narbonne (Aude), more than a thousand firefighters from all over France are battling a fire this Tuesday that has swept through 2,000 hectares of forest since the day before. The A9 motorway reopened late this morning. But due to the wind and heat, the local fire chief fears a "difficult afternoon."
- Aude has experienced three fires in one week: on June 29, a fire consumed 400 hectares, started by the passage of a vehicle carrying a poorly extinguished barbecue . Last weekend, a new fire covered 430 hectares, started by a car that caught fire on the emergency lane of the A61 Toulouse-Narbonne motorway.
In Marseille, wind gusts won't ease until 10 p.m. The wind is blowing particularly strongly in the Phocaean city, with gusts reaching up to 85 km/h this Tuesday, according to Paul Marquis, an independent meteorologist. "In Marseille, the wind won't ease until 10 or 11 p.m. at the earliest," the expert said, indicating a humidity level below 20% until 7 p.m. The wind will weaken to 40 or 50 km/h tonight.
Marseille residents are trying to extinguish the fires themselves. According to information from La Provence and CLPress images, Marseille residents are trying to extinguish the flames approaching homes themselves. In La Castellane, a housing project in the northern districts of Marseille located between the 15th and 16th arrondissements, " residents are arming themselves with buckets of water [and] are doing everything they can to prevent the fire from reigniting in areas already doused by firefighters," the local newspaper reports.
Gyms requisitioned in Marseille. According to information from La Provence , the city of Marseille has requisitioned three gymnasiums in case it needs to accommodate evacuees this evening. According to the local newspaper, the city hall has also locked down leisure and community centers in the 16th arrondissement, where flames are threatening homes, including more than 700 children at this stage.
No more trains are arriving or departing from Marseille to Lyon or Paris. Due to the significant spread of the fire toward Marseille, "train services are interrupted departing and arriving from Marseille in north and westbound directions," SNCF Réseaux announced this Tuesday afternoon. This affects all trains to Lyon, Paris, Brussels, Strasbourg, etc. " As the time for resuming services is currently undetermined, SNCF Voyageurs is urging passengers to postpone their journeys and not to go to the station," the railway company added. At Marseille Saint-Charles station, many trains are delayed or canceled.
The mayor of Marseille is asking residents to "limit their movements as much as possible . " In a tweet posted mid-afternoon, the mayor of the Phocaean city, Benoît Payan (PS), indicated that the fire that broke out earlier in the day in Pennes-Mirabeau was at the "gates of Marseille." " I ask all Marseille residents to be extremely vigilant and to limit their movements as much as possible to make way for emergency services, particularly in the north of the city," he added.
Marseille firefighters face "extremely adverse weather conditions." In the Bouches-du-Rhône department, which is on red alert due to the significant risk of forest fires, the marine firefighters spoke in a message to the press this Tuesday afternoon of "extremely adverse weather conditions," with drought, very low humidity, and "a wind that will not weaken before 11 p.m. and will blow all night."
The flames have reached Marseille. The fire that broke out this Tuesday morning in Pennes-Mirabeau has reportedly reached Marseille, according to BFMTV and France Info , citing the marine firefighters. The city , for its part, declared in the middle of the afternoon that the fire was "advancing towards Marseille," and called on residents of the 16th arrondissement "to confine themselves indoors, pending localized instructions." According to the firefighters, the flames have already covered 30 hectares northwest of the Phocaean city.
Marseille's 16th arrondissement is under lockdown. Faced with the spread of flames near homes, the prefect of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region has ordered the lockdown of several areas in the town of Penne-Mirabeau. In Marseille, residents of the 16th arrondissement, northwest of the city, must also remain confined "as a safety measure . " "To prevent smoke from entering your homes: Close the shutters and doors, and place damp cloths in the cracks," the prefecture specifies.
⚠️ Residents of the 16th arrondissement of @marseille : For safety reasons, please stay indoors.
ℹ️: A FR-Alert message has been broadcast. To stay safe:To prevent smoke from entering your homes: Close the shutters, the… pic.twitter.com/Alfwa8z3in
One hundred firefighters mobilized. In Bouches-du-Rhône, the department's firefighters reported mobilizing 168 firefighters to the Pennes-Mirabeau fire, along with 68 fire engines. The fires currently cover 30 hectares.
In Spain, a forest fire has already ravaged nearly 3,000 hectares. A fire is raging this Tuesday near Tarragona, in northeastern Spain. It "affects an area of approximately 2,899 hectares of land, largely forest," Catalan rural agents wrote late Tuesday morning on X. Some 18,000 people living in areas near the fire, which broke out on Monday, are potentially affected by lockdown orders issued by the authorities, the Civil Protection Service said, also on X.
A fire at the gates of Marseille. Marseille-Provence Airport, located in Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône), was closed Tuesday due to a fire spreading "very rapidly" in Pennes-Mirabeau, a neighboring town north of Marseille. Due to the proximity of the fire, whose smoke, carried by the wind, reached the city, giving off a pungent odor, the fourth-busiest French airport after Roissy, Orly, and Nice, was closed shortly after noon, leading to the diversion of at least ten flights to airports in the region and the cancellation of at least three others, according to an airport spokesperson. This fire also led to the evacuation of two housing estates, according to the authorities. The flames have already covered 30 hectares.
Firefighters worried in Aude. With winds of 75 km/h, rising heat and decreasing humidity, the weather conditions reinforced the fire that has been ravaging the outskirts of Narbonne since the day before at midday on Tuesday, and foreshadowed complicated hours ahead, according to the fire chief. "We know we're going to have a difficult afternoon with firefighters exhausted" by the night's work, said Colonel Christophe Magny, commander of the Aude Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS), pointing to a "high risk of spread." Since 2:45 p.m. Monday, firefighters - now more than a thousand from all over France, with reinforcements from a few Romanian firefighters - have been battling a fire that has swept through 2,000 hectares of forest, in the immediate vicinity of Narbonne and the surrounding towns.
Libération
