Firefighters demonstrate in Paris to denounce the lack of resources after the megafires of the summer

Firefighters demonstrate on Tuesday September 29 in Paris. They have been on strike since September 8 and at least until October 20. After the mega forest fires this summer in Landes and Gironde, they denounce the lack of equipment and protection and demand additional resources. Two firefighters died in these fires and 200 were poisoned by the smoke.

Laurent Guilloteau still shows with great emotion the photos he took in July when he arrived as reinforcement from Bouches-du-Rhône on the Saumos fire, north of the Arcachon basin. It was marked by a lack of resources: there were no longer vehicles suitable for forest tracks, no more FFP3 or FFP2 protective masks. All this in the middle of flames and black smoke.

“The masks were all used up”

"In addition to the intensity and the heat, we had a lot of smoke inside, remembers the firefighter. After four or eight hours of intervention, the masks were already all used up. We took our ordinary fabric hood to protect ourselves, knowing that we were at a time when we could no longer breathe. I took smoke, we all had red eyes. I, like my colleagues, were dehydrated during the 72 or 96 hours we were engaged."

Fortunately, the population gave them bottles of water and washed their clothes. Important actions because the danger is not only in breathing the fine particles and heavy metals contained in the fumes, but also in absorbing them through the skin. Around 200 firefighters were poisoned during these fires, including around fifty from carbon monoxide, a particularly dangerous gas produced by the combustion of plants. “The nurse who was with us for the 72 hours tested us, with a measuring device that calculates the level of carbon monoxide you have in your blood, and we were all above the norm,” he testifies.

“Colleagues had coughing fits for ten to fifteen days following the poisoning suffered on the Saumos fire.”

Laurent Guilloteau, firefighter

at franceinfo

“All these carcinogenic particles enter through the skin”

Laurent Guilloteau represents the CGT and he is demanding, like his colleagues from other unions, the generalization of new, more protective hoods, the use of carbon monoxide detectors on forest fires and additional staff to take turns and stay shorter in the smoke.

At the CFDT, Sébastien Bouvier has been working for years on the consequences of fires on the health of firefighters. “All these particles which are carcinogenic enter through the skin, through the respiratory tract, because we are not protected,” he emphasizes. “They end up in the lungs, in the cells, and twenty to twenty-five years later, will trigger cancers.”

There is no official figure on the number of firefighters suffering from cancer, but the National Center for Prevention and Protection (CNPP) estimates that 4% of firefighters are affected by cancer linked to their activity.