When the Forest Becomes a Fuse: The Structural Fire Risk in Southwestern France

The plumes of smoke over the Gironde have long been more than a summer extreme event. They represent a structural vulnerability that has built up over decades and is now becoming plainly apparent under changing climatic conditions. The evacuation of tens of thousands of people around the Bassin d'Arcachon is not an isolated exceptional case, but the expression of a system reaching its limits. It would be politically convenient to identify a single culprit - climate change, forestry or human negligence. But reality is more complex. The major fires in ...