Manuel Escutia was the first firefighter to set eyes on the blaze that consumed 14,000 hectares of southern France in July. When he saw it, from his perch 40m (131ft) above the forest, it was a small cloud of black smoke rising from the trees about 5km away. Escutia had just done a circuit of his watchtower and he was about to go back inside the small cabin at its centre when the smoke caught his eye. It was too dark to be a small cigarette or barbecue fire. It was being fuelled by petrol, Escutia thought. According to his log book, it was 4.30pm on 12 July. "I immediately assumed it was of criminal origin, because of the colour of the smoke," Escutia recalled on Sunday, atop his tower. Escutia crouched down in front of his alidade - an age-old, compass-based device - and sighted the fire: 152 degrees, southwest. He went inside the cabin and called it in to command. "Sending the smoke," Escutia called it. The call set off relays to three other fire watchtowers in the immediate area, to triangulate the precise location. Escutia went back outside and watched. Ten minutes after his first sighting, he could see flames jumping from treetop to treetop, 20m above the ground, and the firefront was 150m long. "I knew straight away it was going to be bad, because the temperature was high and the wind was also high," Escutia said. "But I could not have imagined it would spread as far as it did." The network of 22 watchtowers dotting this forest in Gironde in southern France is the first line of defence against wildfires, which can begin with just a wisp of smoke on the horizon. Escutia, a former moving company owner, has a contract with the fire service to work up in the tower for six months, over the summer fire season, but he also works outside of his contract as a volunteer. He is in his fourth year on the fire service. When the July blaze was really bad, a handful of times Escutia finished his shift on the tower at 10pm and joined... |