Megafires: Rebuilding exactly as before would mean repeating the same mistakes

Following the devastating fires that destroyed nearly 450 homes in the Gironde and Landes regions, geographer Pauline Vilain-Carlotti warns against hasty reconstruction that essentially replicates the original designs. She calls for a rethinking of urban planning at the interface between residential areas and forests, and for the re-establishment of several protective buffer zones around inhabited areas.

Author of the book "The Trial by Fire: Living Differently on Earth ," geographer Pauline Vilain-Carlotti calls, in an interview with AFP, for a return to urban planning better adapted to forest fires, with several firebreaks between inhabited areas and forest massifs.

On Monday in Gironde, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu stated that, for those affected who wish to rebuild, "I would not say identically (...), but something equivalent, it must be possible, and possible very quickly . "

What parameters should be taken into account in the reconstruction in Gironde?

"This is a highly combustible forest, and, moreover, it's in a very touristy area. In the summer, there's an influx of people who have no risk awareness, no fire safety awareness, who come close to this highly flammable forest. So clearly, the situation is explosive in this region."
Rebuilding exactly as it was and very quickly, as Sébastien Lecornu said, without learning any lessons, means not understanding anything about the production of territorial vulnerabilities which are one of the major causes of the significant damage.
We need to rebuild better and move more towards land-use efficiency. We will have to limit the development potential of certain plots of land.
The problem goes far beyond the strict issue of forest fires. Faced with the scale of climatic hazards, which are reinforced by climate change, there are places where we will have to accept not building anymore, because of coastal erosion, flooding, or even forest fires,” replies Pauline Vilain-Carlotti.

What are the areas where construction should no longer be permitted?

"Most fires start in the habitat-forest interfaces, therefore the contact areas between humans, who cause the fires, and vegetation areas.
The heart of the forest is not the problem, it is the edges of the municipalities, which are rather peri-urban.
In traditional Mediterranean villages, there is a very densely populated town center, surrounded by fields, market gardens, or vineyards, and therefore a certain amount of humidity.
This agricultural belt acts as a first firebreak.
In the second periphery we have the pastoral area where the herds feed and where fire is used as a maintenance tool to limit the growth of vegetation.
This creates a second firewall.
And in the third periphery, there is the forest, the wilderness, which is separated from the inhabited area. There is no direct border but a succession of firebreaks.
We need to rediscover this idea, to rethink our entire way of developing territories in order to have protective belts around inhabited areas.
In France, 7.000 municipalities are exposed to the risk of forest fires, but only 287 have a forest fire risk prevention plan (which notably delineates zones according to the level of risk and makes prevention recommendations). It is problematic that the issue of fires has been so poorly integrated into urban planning.
"Modern urban planning, which promotes urban sprawl, residential and/or tourist development and takes advantage of agricultural abandonment, has caused us to lose skills in vegetation management and has produced vulnerable spatial structures," explains the geographer.

What about the location of industrial sites, especially those classified as Seveso due to the hazardous products used?

“For a very long time, natural risks and technological risks were treated very separately.
Today we are talking more and more about NaTech risks, the conjunction of the two: a natural hazard will cause a cascade effect, the explosion of a Seveso site for example, and aggravate the risk of damage to the territories, for the populations and even limit the possibility of controlling the fire.
Seveso sites were not anticipated at all from the point of view of forest fires, we are behind in taking into account NaTech risks.
"However, we are seeing more and more fires, and in increasingly northern departments, so the problem will increase in the coming years," warns Pauline Vilain-Carlotti.