Fire in Aude: Faced with the violence of a forest fire, more than a hundred people evacuated

A fire broke out on Friday around 4pm in the town of Puilaurens in Aude, devastating around a hundred hectares in two hours and leading to the evacuation of 100 to 150 people from the hamlet of Lavagnac

More than a hundred inhabitants of a village in the Aude were evacuated this Friday, and brought to safety, under threat of a virulent fire. This fire, which broke out around 4 pm in the town of Puilaurens, devastated around a hundred hectares of vegetation in two hours.

“As a precaution, between 100 and 150 people from the hamlet of Lavagnac were evacuated and brought to safety in the village of Caudiès-de-Fenouillèdes”, located in the Pyrénées-orientales, specifies the Aude prefecture. The so-called “Cathar” castle of Puilaurens, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, was also evacuated.

While the departments of Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales are placed on orange alert for heatwave by Météo-France, the means mobilized to prevent the spread of the fire are important. Two hundred firefighters on the ground, from Aude but also from the neighboring departments of Pyrénées-Orientales and Hérault, are supported by seven Canadairs, two Dash planes, a Morane 11 helicopter.

“Two firefighters were slightly injured”, the prefecture also underlines. In this rural environment, “accessibility conditions are particularly restrictive for working on the ground and weather conditions remain unfavorable due to the extreme heat”.