France is on fire

This weekend we went camping. It wasn't a weekend though, it was Sunday to Tuesday. What do you call that? Dan has wanted to see the Tour de France ever since we moved to France because he loves looking at men in lycra, but he's not middle class enough for ballet. We nearly saw it 2 years ago, we managed to see all of the promotional vehicles that throw out free hats and stuff and a load of cars in the shape of funny things like cheese triangles, but for some reason, and I don't remember why, we didn't see the actual bike racing. So this year the tour came to Les Angles, which is the mountain area an hour and 15 minutes from us, where we have skied in winter. I've never seen it in summer before and people say it's a cool place to go in the summer time too. So we decided to go camping there to experience summer in the mountains and to see the Tour de France go past.

We spent all morning packing and left just after lunch. We were aware of some fires on the way and Dan said we might have to take the small road that goes through all the villages rather that the big 110kph dual carriage way. Fine no probs, wild fires happen every year here, so we've become a bit blase about them, like they were just annoying roadworks. So we set off on the big road and after 10 minutes of driving were forced to join the smaller parallel road. We could see a lot of smoke but at this point it was kind of interesting rather than terrifying.

On the big road

Obviously I wish the fires weren't happening and climate change is scary, but it is quite interesting to drive past fire, and see the helicopters flying and the planes that scoop up water from the reservoir to drop on the fire.

We continued on the little road and then it was blocked off too. We weren't sure if there was any way through, but then we followed some other drivers onto an even smaller road which is more of a bike route, that you would normally only use as an access road. So we managed to make it past Ille-sur-tet to Bouleternere.

Then we came to a roundabout where we could see actual fire on the hills as well as smoke, and we saw about 10 fire engines coming out of a field that had been down to the river to fill up with water. We continued our journey thinking we were past the worst, but about 10 minutes later we saw more fire just near Vinca. 

Vinca is our favourite lake hang out spot, it's the nearest place we can go to swim for free. At this point the fire was on the opposite side of the road and river from the town and lake of Vinca, but the small village of Rodes was at risk and being evacuated. We continued on and after another 10 minutes of driving past fire, things were fine and normal.

little stop to admire the views

Our friends Sam and Emma were joining us for the camping trip but leaving a little bit later. We were giving them advice on the best way to go, they left around a hour after us, but by this point the way we drove had all been blocked off and they had to drive round the super long way which is an hour longer. 

We arrived at the campsite and set up the tent and went for a swim while waiting for our friends, and then when they arrived we helped them set up their tent and had a BBQ. It was a lovely time hanging out but the concerns about the fire were playing on our minds. We were glad to be safe and far from the fires, but the fires were progressing fast and it had managed to cross the river to the much more populated other side. We could see updates on our phones about different villages being evacuated. We also found out they had told everyone not to travel to see the Tour de France and they had cancelled the promotional bit at the beginning where they have the mad vehicles that throw things out. But since we were literally right on the road it was going past there was no danger to us walking up with our little folding chairs and watching the cyclists go past. 

 

Me and Dan were discussing what were the most important things to take from our house. We decided the laptop and passports would be administratively the most annoying things too loose, but we also talked about a big box of photos I have and all my paintings. I don't think if I had 20 minutes to pack a car to leave I would save all my paintings, mainly because it feels a bit arrogant. I think I'd save this one: 

and Dan said he would save my newest one I just finished last week:

both are available to buy as prints even if the original burns.

While villages were burning I was ironically really cold. The warmest outfit I took was a very thin pair of cotton trousers a t-shirt and a very thin cardigan.  It was around 36 degrees as we were leaving and I just couldn't imagine ever being cold again. But up in the mountains it does get cold at night. Emma kindly lent me a base layer and me and Dan zipped our sleeping bags together so we could snuggle ourselves warm. But it was a night of very little sleep, worrying that our house might be burning. At one point Dan offered to drive back and collect the important stuff, he'd have to go the long way making it a 5 hour round trip, which seemed crazy, but if our house did burn I would be glad he had done it. You can't wait until you need to evacuate to do that kind of thing though, you have to do it while you still can. In our area the villages are all in a row. Lets say we're village 1, village 4 was being evacuated and village 2 and 3 were asking the question, "do we need to leave?" So there was some sense to making the trip while it was still safe to do so.

In the morning we tried to have a nice normal day, just chilling in the campsite playing some games and swimming and in the afternoon we went to watch the race. Everyone being told not to travel there did mean we had a better view and we had a good position on a hill 25k from the end, so we could see them going up. Dan or Sam could write a better bit about this, but I will just say we waited a while the 2 cyclists in front came past then the big blob of cyclists and then a few more cyclists. 

 

Then we went to the campsite sort of common room space to watch the rest. I thought we could be on TV and I could watch the bit where we were on iplayer or something, but it turns out in the UK its only highlights on channel 5, and me waving was probably not a highlight. I would have had to caused a crash to make it onto a highlights program. 

I slept much better the second night, I think it was not quite as cold. The road back was still closed and I think will stay closed for a while, so we went back the long way round. On the way we saw Les Angles where we ski in the winter, and we stopped at Axat for a picnic and then saw an outdoor pool and thought, "why not?" Eric absolutely loves swimming at the moment, he could spend all day in a pool.

We returned to find things fairly normal, we can't see the smoke from our house. It's all fine apart from the existential dread of a climate crisis and the personal doubt about being weeks away from buying a house in a region that's burning.

Happy Wednesday.