Fire in Gironde “At 3 a.m., we received an SMS ordering people to leave the peninsula”: on vacation in Cap Ferret, a former elected official from Pontarlier evacuated
Her little corner of paradise transformed into hell… On vacation in Cap Ferret, in Gironde, Daniella Thiebaud-Fonck is one of some 220,000 people evacuated since Wednesday July 22, due to the gigantic fire which affects the northern edges of the Arcachon basin and now threatens the outskirts of the Bordeaux metropolitan area. Elected until March 2026 and since 2014 – alongside Patrick Genre in the city of Pontarlier – she was deputy mayor, in charge of culture in particular. Daniella Thiebaud-Fonck arrived on Friday July 17 at Cap Ferret, “44-hectare avenue”, an area located in the far south, at the tip of the Cap.
“When the fire broke out further north, we wondered whether we should leave or not. People said that you had to get ready to leave, that you had to pack your things. Others thought it would be fine, that at worst, we would perhaps sleep a night on the beach. I had registered with the town hall, so I received the information. And on Friday, at 3 a.m., we received an SMS alert, which ordered the evacuation of the entire peninsula, this time it no longer only concerned the north. Everyone had to leave… The gendarmerie, the emergency services, came knocking on the doors. We had started to prepare a few things just in case, but since we were really thinking of going to the beach, in the end, we hadn’t packed everything and we had to leave very quickly, so we jumped in the car, leaving a lot of things in the house we were renting. »
It was quite apocalyptic
The evacuation felt like the end of the world: “There were a lot of us on the roads, it took us two and a half hours to leave Cap Ferret. There were people on bikes, with big bags, it was quite apocalyptic. We could see the fire in the distance. Then, we arrived at the top of the Cape and there, indeed, there was smoke, to the point that we put masks in the car to get through it all. »
The family then stopped at Saint-Jean-d’Illac. “There, people offered us accommodation, which was a no-brainer, because with all these people evacuated, it was extremely difficult to find somewhere to stay. » Finally, the group chose to push on to the surroundings of Bazas, southeast of Bordeaux, where members of the family offered to welcome them. “And we did rather well, because we have since learned that this lodge also had to be evacuated. » This Sunday, July 26, Daniella and her children were still with the family, waiting to know whether or not they will be able to return to Cap Ferret. “It is far from being won, and if however they reopen the peninsula, it will not be before Tuesday or Wednesday I think,” confides the septuagenarian, who is hesitant to return now. “The fire is not far from the airport in Mérignac, the A63 is blocked, it could also come to Bazas and Langon. It might become a problem to leave. »
It’s nature that decides
Apart from her personal case, the Pontissalian is sad for this territory which she discovered around ten years ago and which she loves so much. It also measures the scale of the task, the extreme difficulty for the exhausted firefighters. “These swirling winds… There are some who swear “it’s northeast, it’s north”, the truth is that it swirls, and in the pines, the woodpeckers jump, they make leaps of a kilometer sometimes, starting fires elsewhere. Whatever we say and despite all the efforts of the authorities to prevent and anticipate, there will inevitably be something that we cannot control. Nature decides. »
