THOUSANDS EVACUATED AS WILDFIRES RAGE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE

Tue 17 August 2021:

On Monday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that France has despatched hundreds of firemen to fight a wildfire that had erupted in southern France at Var region.

The massive wildfires in the coastal Var department in southeastern France has spread to over 4,000 hectares (9,884 acres) overnight, and more than 900 firefighters make desperate efforts to extinguish them, French civil defense agency said on Tuesday.

“Multiple resources have been mobilized to support the teams that have been dealing with this forest fire which has spread over 4,000 hectares through the night,” the organization wrote on Twitter.

“Thousands of people have been evacuated as a precautionary measure, but there are no victims,” a fire service spokeswoman said on Tuesday adding the fire was “still very fierce”.

Although over 900 firefighters are working on the ground, with four fire-fighting Canadair planes and a Super Puma helicopter deployed, the fires are still ravaging six communes in the Var department, according to the local authorities.

France is the latest of a number of Mediterranean countries to be hit by extreme weather and wildfires, which climate scientists warn will become increasingly common because of man-made global warming.

The mayors of the communes affected expressed their concern with the damage to “an exceptional natural heritage” of the Var department.

A hotel and a camping site were destroyed by the fires in Grimaud commune, with several people injured, local newspaper Var Martin reported.

The fires broke out on Monday in Gonfaron, quickly engulfing several thousand hectares due to drought and strong wind and in spite of all the measures taken, the Var authorities said.

Greece, Turkey and Algeria have seen the worst wildfires and floods in the past weeks. Forests, homes and businesses were destroyed while firefighters and volunteers tried to help contain it, moving the population to a safe place. Politicians and specialists blamed climate change as dangerously high temperatures were recorded in the Mediterranean.

We are destroying these unique treasures

Many experts and activists believe thet climate change is a common issue for the whole world to focus on. It is always right beside us and appears in different forms. For example, the rise in global temperatures, which are now 1.2 degrees Celcius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, is both heating up the Earth and destabilizing it. The number and effects of climate change related events are increasing day by day.

Experts also says we are destroying these unique treasures with our own hands, sometimes to create settlements and sometimes to open lands up for agriculture. Sometimes we sacrifice these natural miracles for a comfortable life. We use trees with impunity for new furniture, for wooden dwellings, for wood-based structures.

According to the data of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 15 billion trees are cut down worldwide annually for the production of paper and timber. Only 5 billion new ones are planted to replace the lost ones. Therefore, we wipe out 10 billion trees from the Earth’s surface every year.

According to the World Forest Outlook 2020 (SOFO2020) Report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 420 million hectares (1.04 billion acres) of forested area has been lost in the last 30 years due to different uses. Forests are known as the most effective and low-cost method in combating today’s global climate crisis.

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