15-year-old teenager admitted to having thrown a cigarette butt at the origin of the Mérignac fire

The teenager indicted in the investigation into the fire which caused the death of two firefighters in July near Bordeaux airport, in Mérignac (Gironde), admitted to having thrown a cigarette butt at the place where the fire started, the prosecution said this Friday. The 15-year-old teenager was indicted for “unintentional destruction by fire […] causing the death of others,” said the public prosecutor in Bordeaux, Renaud Gaudeul, in a press release.

Arrested and placed in police custody on Tuesday, two brothers, occupants of a vehicle which had been seen in “immediate proximity” to the fire, admitted their presence on July 21 at that location, according to the magistrate. The older brother, an adult, is “at this stage exonerated”, affirmed the prosecutor, specifying that the minor admitted to having “smoked a cigarette, which was subsequently thrown away”. The teenager estimated “that he could be at the origin of the disaster, without certainty”. The teenager was placed in a closed educational center, “following his first appearance interrogation,” added Renaud Gaudeul.

Two firefighters killed

On July 21, the truck in which the two firefighters were located had been “trapped” in a plot of pine trees engulfed in flames, according to the director of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of Gironde, Marc Vermeulen.