Struck by one of the worst waves of fires in its memory, France has recorded record carbon emissions from the gases emitted by forest fires, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported on Friday. ) of the European Union (EU).
The body, which also analyzes pollution levels in Portugal and Spain through the Copernicus satellite, notes that forest fires in France have caused a peak in emissions since 2003, when measurements of this type began.
Mark Parrington, a scientist at CAMS, stated that successive heat waves have promoted fires in southwest France and the Iberian Peninsula and warned that these fires “have an impact on the air quality in the area”.
France, in fact, registered around 50 thousand hectares consumed this summer, triple the average recorded in the last decade.
These data, which correspond to the months of June, July and even August, are released when ing France is once again fighting several fires, the most important in the department of Gironde, in southwest France.
There, at least 7,500 hectares have been burned in recent days and 10 1,000 people had to be evacuated.
Although the flames have not advanced significantly in recent hours, the French authorities, who have around 1,000 soldiers on the ground, have already begun to receive human and material reinforcements from several EU countries, including Romania, Poland, Austria and Germany.
With two each, Greece and Italy donated four of their Canadair amphibious planes, which will join the dozens of aircraft that are already pouring water on the Gironde.
In addition to this fire, another worries the authorities, in the Broceliande forest — a pilgrimage site for lovers of mythology —, in French Brittany, where about of 230 hectares.
To further strengthen the fight against the flames, the French government appealed to public companies and private so that they give time off to employees who are volunteer firefighters so that they can be more easily mobilized.
Although he is still on vacation at the Bregançon fort, French President Emmanuel Macron continues to monitor the situation and welcomed in a message on the networks the arrival of firefighters from French Polynesia, located in the Antipodes, to fight the fires in Gironde.
