Here, the ocean beach of the Lagoon.
F. P. / « SO »
What remains today of the landscape of a fortnight ago? Snapshots of yesterday superimposed on the reality of tomorrow.
This road, on the night of July 17 to 18, the fire that had been devouring the forest massif for five days crossed it, sweeping away almost everything in its path. What remains today of the landscape of a fortnight ago? Snapshots of yesterday superimposed on the reality of tomorrow…
–
Here, the ocean beach of the Lagoon. F. P. / « SO »
What remains today of the landscape of a fortnight ago? Snapshots of yesterday superimposed on the reality of tomorrow.
This road, on the night of July 17 to 18, the fire that had been devouring the forest massif for five days crossed it, sweeping away almost everything in its path. What remains today of the landscape of a fortnight ago? Snapshots of yesterday superimposed on the reality of tomorrow.
At Petit Nice, the ground remains blackened by the passage of fire. F. P. / « SO »
At La Lagune, the carpet of ashes covers the sand. F. P. / « SO »
An impression of autumn emerges from the foliage. The green ocean of the massif has faded, diluted. Brown, ocher and especially black. The coal covers the filiform trunks of the pines and lines the sand with an indelible mark. As for what man has built, fire has made short work of it. All five campsites were devastated. Scraps of their memory lie on the ground.
The landscape faded. F. P. / « SO »
Skeletons on a battlefield
The sign of Blue waves, witness to the cinematographic past of the Dune campsite, was spared. At Petit Nice, only one tent survived. At the Panorama campsite, it was the restaurant that survived. Why ? There is nothing to understand: the games for children are still standing while here and there, charred plates, chairs, tables and bicycles are frozen by the passage of the flames. Of the caravans, only the frame remains. Skeletons on a battlefield.
The skeletons of the caravans, in the campsites. F. P. / « SO »
The view from the Panorama campsite. F. P. / « SO »
On the ground, gas cylinders are marked in red. They have not yet been processed. This road is an open wound: it suppurates. “We will have to make clear cuts, prevent the trees from falling on them”, explains Commander Laurent Dellac, present since the start of the fire at La Teste.
Yes, it’s illusory all these trees still standing. It is believed that the forest can cope. Some pines, whose sap channels would not have been frozen by the fire, will survive, others will be attacked by bark beetles and fungi. In this lottery, very few will survive. In the end, most heads will roll.
The charred trunks give the illusion of an unfinished life. F. P. / « SO »
The indelible July 12, 2022
“We will no longer have the same perception of things”, summarizes the firefighter. Already, the relationship to reality has changed. In the parking lot of Petit Nice, the ashes fly away underfoot. A charred shrub stands, ghostly, in front of the ocean. The surf seems indifferent to the carnage.
We will no longer have the same perception of things.
From the Panorama campsite, the view of which has always been prized, the charred remains of a shrub cut through the landscape. F. P.
If the other restaurants were saved, those of La Salie, like here in the north, were devastated. F. P.
The aid station and the restaurants are still there. Emptied of their reason for being. Same thing at the Lagoon. At La Salie Nord, the fire was a toss-up. The duckboard path that leads to the beach is intact on one side, charred on the other. On the left, the prevention and security area escaped the flames. To the right, the restaurant is just a pile of ruins.
And on the notice board of the house of sliding, at the foot of the ocean, the times of the tides, the temperature of the water and this date, forever engraved, of July 12, 2022. As if time had stopped.
On the beach of La Salie Nord, the billboard remains frozen on this fateful date of July 12. F. P.
–
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/BSMG5ZZZKRAO3JFMHDREKQD5ZA.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1)