Fires: how much does it cost?

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As the forest fires progress, the cost of emergency response is also skyrocketing. In Narbonne, firefighters have been battling the flames for three days: 270 emergency vehicles and their crews, costing nearly €1 million per day. These resources are available both on the ground and in the air.

In Aude, Hérault, and Bouches-du-Rhône, dozens of Canadair rotations have been taking place every day since the fires began: 16,000 euros per flight hour. These planes are also increasingly expensive to maintain. " You have to know that when we maintain our Canadairs each year, it costs 30 million euros. And this year, it's gone up to 34 million euros. So, inevitably, we have higher maintenance costs because they are aging ," explains Mickaël Biberon, spokesperson for the UNSA firefighters.

France has a limited stock of water bombers . So, to cope with the increasing number of fires across the country, civil security is renting them: 106 million euros since 2020, according to a recent parliamentary report. These fires are devastating forests and sometimes even homes. In Marseille, a woman lost everything yesterday. Tomorrow, she has an appointment with her insurance expert to assess the damage. " The insurance companies told me that I was 100% covered since it was an unintentional fire on my part, but I'm going to wait until I've been fully compensated before renting an apartment. I don't want to buy a house anymore, I don't want to be a homeowner anymore ," she says.

Increasingly frequent damage in the summer is costing insurance companies dearly. After the massive fires in Gascony in 2022, insurers paid out €4.5 billion in compensation.

Non-exhaustive list.