Fire not crochet

Last night I had said that I would be writing about crochet this evening. However life has a habit of throwing us curved balls and then we have to deal with them before anything else. And that is how it is at the moment.

Yesterday afternoon during the extreme heat we became aware of a fire that was burning up on the Monts d’Arree. We live in the Monts d’Arree but not on the open moorland which is where the fire was. By the early part of the evening we had become aware that some people we know thought that some homes might be evacuated. I’m not sure that anyone thought that that was a serious possibility.

We went to bed not too concerned about the situation. At about 5:30 am the dogs woke me up. I took them outside where there was a strange yellow light and the smell of smoke was awful. It was then that I found out that at about 2am several villages were evacuated and our friends’ campsite. All of this was starting to feel a strange mixture of frightening and surreal.

Several roads around us have been closed with some of the associated traffic being re-routed past our front door. There have been gendarmes and council workers around all day. It is often difficult to gain up-to-date information. We are using a range of sources to know what is happening. About twenty minutes ago someone rang me to tell me that they had heard that the fire is coming towards La Feuillée, our village. Everything appears to be really well organised and so if we do have to leave accommodation will be offered. I really hope it won’t come to that.

There is a point to my post. We live in Brittany, an area of Northern France. Not only are we north but also west close to the Atlantic. Brittany is renowned for how wet it is. It is probably wetter than the south west of the UK and on a par with Ireland. Houses here suffer from forms of wet rot that are not seen in other countries. This fire is not just a gorse fire. It has been burning for more than 24 hours, it is not yet under control, let alone out. At the last count 1500 hectares had been burnt. Thankfully due to effective evacuation no one has died. However we need to think carefully about what is happening to our planet. Fires happen of course they do. However yesterday it reached 40°c here. An precedented temperature that brings with it many associated issues for those not used to it and to animals and vegetation that are not adapted to live in it. Given we only have one planet we need to look after it we need to think about how we use the resources. Currently it appears that the green agenda has played into the hands of those who want to make money from it. We need to consider how the needs of everyone are met whilst looking after our natural resources. I hope I don’t experience anything like this again however it would seem likely that we will.

So as they used to say in Hill Street Blues, ‘stay safe out there’. Until tomorrow…