What I experienced was a war.
Vineyard Owner Recounts Harrowing Experience Battling Wildfire in Aude, France
“This is war. If anyone doesn’t feel it, they should step down.” These were the solemn words the fire chief addressed to his men as they entered the property managed by Arnaud Gassier and his father in Bages (Aude), a few kilometers from Narbonne. When the 28-year-old winemaker repeats them two days later, it’s as if the wall of flames he saw at that moment rises again before him. Arnaud Gassier was only supposed to guide the firefighters on his Haute-Fontaine estate and evacuate immediately, but the encirclement of his property by the flames forced him to stay alongside the firefighters at the height of the disaster on Monday, July 7th.
That day, the young man saw a curtain of smoke above the hills behind his house as he came out of lunch. Half an hour later, the sky was orange, and an hour later, the fire was heading straight for him, leaving just enough time to evacuate. “What I experienced next was war. For the second time in my life, I felt the force of nature. The first time was facing a hurricane in Guadeloupe. This time, it was facing the flames. It was fascinating, but also frightening hours,” says the winemaker, who thought he would lose the property he acquired four years ago, and from which the first Gassier vintage is due to be released this year. “That Monday evening, we had four Canadair water bombers above us that we couldn’t even see, the fire was so present, even thick. And the fire trucks were crossing walls of flames to save our buildings,” he explains, grateful to those who fought for his property.
Born on Monday, July 7th, at the gates of Narbonne, this first major fire of the summer in the department (after two others that burned some 700 hectares each) was only contained on Wednesday at 6 p.m., after an extraordinary battle, according to the departmental director of the departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS), Christophe Magny. For him, “it is an exceptional fire, which will mark the history of Aude.”
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