“If it’s too late, at least we tried,” said a defiant Hugo, 26, as he refilled his water tank. “Fifty thousand hectares has already been destroyed, what will we tell our children?”
Hugo grew up in the area and has returned from his home in Bali to watch his mother’s house in the village of Arès, which is perilously close to the wildfires.
“It’s horrible, it’s our home, it’s our region, it’s our forest, it’s where we grew up, it’s where our family live, where we live, it’s horrible. I feel a lot of sadness,” Maëlys, 23, told us, her face covered in soot.
“I am a nurse and I’m here to help,” she added. Maëlys said her friends own big water tanks, which they then use to try to put out fires that flare-up to prevent them from spreading.
“In the morning I am at the hospital working, and in the afternoon I’m in the forest helping,” she said.
