“Even if it’s too late, we gave it our all,” said Hugo, 26, as he replenished his water tank. “With fifty thousand hectares already razed, what will we tell our children?”
Hugo, a native of the region, has returned from his home in Bali to protect his mother’s house in the village of Arès, which lies perilously close to the advancing wildfires.
“It’s devastating; this is our home, our region, our forest, the place where we grew up and where our families live,” Maëlys, 23, told us, her face streaked with soot.
“I am a nurse, and I am here to help,” she added. Maëlys explained that her friends own large water tanks that they use to douse flare-ups and prevent the fire from spreading.
“I work at the hospital in the mornings and spend my afternoons in the forest assisting,” she said.