MEGAFEUX / Un pompier tourangeau de retour du Canada
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00:00 International solidarity against the mega fires in Canada, 10 million hectares of forest,
00:05 went on fire.
00:07 So, in order to lend a hand to the fire soldiers on site,
00:10 120 French firefighters left at the beginning of the summer,
00:13 among them a Tourangeau.
00:15 Mathieu Portrait, just back from three weeks of missions,
00:18 told his experience in Clemence-d'Ausque.
00:21 After three days of transit,
00:24 Corporal Mathieu Portrait returns to Touraine.
00:27 His colleagues welcome him as a hero.
00:29 How are you Mathieu?
00:31 Good.
00:33 How are you?
00:35 The professional firefighter was chosen among about 50 volunteers
00:40 following a call from the Inter-Ministerial Crisis Management Operational Centre.
00:45 He came to support the Canadian firefighters
00:47 in order to control the mega fires in Quebec.
00:50 There are times when we want to move forward,
00:52 when the forest is so dense that we will have to cut through it,
00:54 we will have to make a passage.
00:57 They have what we call black spines,
01:00 like trees at home, which are 30 metres long.
01:04 When it burns, it's so dry that it burns in 10 seconds,
01:08 and then the fire goes out.
01:10 We really feel that the fire has passed.
01:12 But when we dig deep,
01:15 the soil, what we call humus, is not burned.
01:17 In fact, that's what we'll have to protect and cut through.
01:22 On site, fires are moving away from homes,
01:24 but spreading over several square kilometres.
01:27 The aim is to encircle the fires and preserve the vegetation
01:31 in order to avoid propagation.
01:33 A long-term work on a huge territory.
01:37 What I remember the most is the helplessness of the men in relation to this.
01:41 Because when you're a firefighter, you say to yourself,
01:43 "There's a fire, we're going to put it out."
01:45 But now we realize that we can't necessarily put it out.
01:47 Now it's such large areas,
01:49 you can imagine that with 120 firefighters,
01:51 we can't put out 110,000 hectares in three weeks.
01:53 If this mission was carried out on a part of the Caporal's leave,
01:57 the rest will be short-term.
01:59 He assures the guard from Sunday.
02:02 [inaudible]
02:04 [silence]