Wildfires spread across southern France, as heatwave reignites forest concerns

Firefighters were battling on Thursday to bring a major blaze in the Aude region, near the border with Spain, under control, after flames spread through dry vegetation in difficult conditions.

Local authorities said weather conditions remained unfavourable, with high winds risking spreading the fire farther. 

The fire, which began on Wednesday, came days after a record-breaking heatwave across much of Europe and as France's weather office warned that another spell of extreme heat could hit next week.

French health authorities estimate last week's record temperatures may have caused 1,000 excess deaths. 

By late Wednesday, the blaze had covered 800 hectares. “The fire is contained at times, but it is not under control," the local prefecture reported at around 11pm. 

According to the Feux de Foret wildfire tracking site, posting on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), "high temperatures and strong winds" are increasing the risk of fires spreading.

European heatwave continues to top records amid high alerts in the east

Hundreds of firefighters were mobilised in the Hérault and Aude departments, with drought, strong winds and difficult terrain hampering efforts to contain the flames. With no access routes in the hilly area, water-dumping aircraft were deployed to help crews on the ground.

Temperatures of around 30C, combined with strong wind gusts, helped drive the fire through low, very dry vegetation. Around 200 people were evacuated or confined in the communes of Pouzols-Minervois and Mailhac, officials said.

Strong winds on Wednesday night carried smoke across the region, including to Marseille airport, where pilots on at least one incoming flight reportedly has to reassure passengers that the burning smell was not coming from the aircraft.

Forests under threat

The fires have added urgency to a wider debate over the future of France's forests, which are threatened by rising temperatures, drought, disease and insect pests as well as more frequent fires.

Forests remain one of France's chief natural tools for limiting climate change. As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their wood, roots and soils. This makes forests France's main land-based carbon sink and a key part of the country's target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

How forests decimated by wildfires still have the power to heal

But that role is being compromised. The latest national inventories show French forests now absorb around 50 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, representing nearly 10 percent of national emissions. In the early 2010s, they were capturing almost twice as much.

Repeated droughts are slowing tree growth, heatwaves are increasing tree mortality and forests are becoming more vulnerable to disease and pests. In addition to these threats there is another factor linked to human behaviour: more intensive timber harvesting.

The environmental organisation Canopée – "Canopy" in English – has accused the government of pursuing a strategy that is incompatible with its climate commitments.

Its criticism focuses on the draft third National Low-Carbon Strategy – known as SNBC 3 – which sets out France's roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Under this strategy, annual timber harvests would rise from around 53 million cubic metres at present to 60 million cubic metres by 2030.

EU parliament delays anti-deforestation law by another year

Wood energy debate

For the government, the increase is intended to serve several goals. Timber is expected to replace some high-emission materials such as concrete or steel, supply district heating networks, produce more wood pellets for heating and contribute to aviation fuels.

Canopée contests that approach, calculating that the planned increase in timber harvesting would further reduce the forest carbon sink by around 11 million tonnes of CO2 a year from 2030 onwards.

That would account for much of the shortfall that could prevent France from meeting its European carbon storage obligations.

The organisation says the rise is being driven largely by the growing role of wood in the energy transition, including heating, district heating networks and synthetic fuel production.

It says several planned biomass power stations, pellet plants and aviation fuel projects would already account for nearly 70 percent of the additional wood energy volumes envisaged by the SNBC.

The report also challenges the automatic classification of wood energy as carbon-neutral, saying that burning forest biomass releases stored carbon dioxide immediately, while reabsorption through tree regrowth can take decades.

Canopée argues that preserving the carbon sink should now become the priority of forest policy, even if that means reducing some uses of wood, particularly for energy.

The debate now centres on how France can protect forests increasingly exposed to fire, and preserve their role as carbon sinks.

(with newswires)