Landes and Gironde fires: two methods for dealing with fires

Anger returns like a refrain. It targets the prefecture, the authorities, the hierarchy of firefighters. All those who, directly or indirectly, participated in the decisions regarding the megafire which ravaged more than 42,000 ha in Gironde.

From the first hours, the State assumed a defensive strategy based on two principles: not losing any human life and protecting homes before attacking the front of the flames. A doctrine which unfortunately did not prevent the death of two firefighters, corporals Anthony Berthôme and Wilfried Schmitter. It also had a price: that of the forest.

For many residents, this choice leaves a bitter taste. “We let everything burn,” saddens Jonathan, hunter and forest owner in Porge (Gironde). The evening when the flames crossed the town, he saved his house with his two teenagers.

On the other hand, he lost 70 ha of pine trees. “All my wood burned. He had to finance my kids’ studies, he laments. I went back up, I don’t understand…” A misunderstanding which has spread to the four corners of Gironde, especially since 183 houses were destroyed in Porge.

Hot comparison

Maxence, a real estate agent who supplied the firefighters with water in Lège-Cap-Ferret, also struggles to accept the choices made. He sees it as a decision taken far from the field, “probably from Paris or Bordeaux”, without measuring what these rows of pines represent.

The forest brings life to the territory thanks to silviculture, the pillar of the wood-paper sector. It has also shaped the identity of this destination popular for its landscapes. “When we see how the fires were managed in the Landes, we choke,” continues Jonathan.

The comparison has become inevitable. In the Landes, the fire was limited to around 3,600 ha, without causing any casualties. In a few hours, however, it destroyed up to 120 homes in Biscarrosse, according to the town hall. Often half-heartedly and under cover of anonymity, firefighters mobilized in Gironde attribute this gap to an approach considered too cautious. In their eyes, the desire to never expose the men would have allowed the fire to reach a scale that was still possible to contain in the first hours.

A reading that Lieutenant-Colonel Éric Pitault, group leader of the departmental fire service, rejects. “The fire was extremely violent. Our priority was to prevent it from jumping roads and firebreaks, carried by the wind, and becoming uncontrollable,” he explains.

The debate is all the more lively as the two departments share the same forest area and the same prevention model. Since the gigantic fires of 1949, which killed 82 people on site, forest owners have financed, via a dedicated tax, the union associations for the defense of forests against fire (DFCI).

“We know that we are a particularly sensitive region,” underlines Benoît Bodennec, director of the DFCI des Landes. Our role is therefore to maintain the trails, set up firebreaks, create water points and facilitate emergency response. »

Develop the doctrine

Despite this common base, when the trees catch fire, differences in fire culture emerge. “We are often considered hotheads. Above all, we are very efficient,” summarizes Thomas Ducos, a Landes volunteer firefighter mobilized on the Biscarrosse fires.

The Landes teams favor direct attacks and do not hesitate to leave the forest tracks to come into contact with the flames before they gain power. “The objective is always to take the fire from behind. A fire progresses in a triangle: we attack the sides to close it up to its head,” he explains.

From there to setting up the Landes method as a model? The question is not new. In the aftermath of the 2022 fires, a report from the General Inspectorate of the Environment and Sustainable Development already noted – a very rare occurrence in the profession – the criticisms made by some of the Landes firefighters with regard to the methods used in Gironde. The authors judged that these questions justified a professional debate on control methods.

The summer of 2026, marked by fires from the Var to the Fontainebleau forest, raised awareness that fires will now be more frequent, faster, more violent. Faced with this new situation, the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nunez, recognized, on France 2 on July 26, 2026, that it would “probably be necessary to adapt” the firefighting doctrine.