Into The Fire

The Mistral, drought and arsonists… an explosive cocktail in Marseille.A fire has just broken out behind the Marseille Aix University in Luminy. This first outbreak poses a direct threat to the Calanques (creeks) nature reserve, one of the jewels of France’s patrimony

In Marseille, on July 14, the housing projects come alive and organize firework displays one after the other. This is the night chosen by arsonists to put on their own little shows, in which the marine firefighters are the principal actors

The firefighters of the Saint Pierre firehouse, one of the busiest in Marseille, are called to a fire in an apartment in a block of several floors. Meantime a pleasure boat and its passengers are drifting towards the jagged rocks of the calanques. To make things worse… the Mistral is forecast to blow

The GRIMP, the dangerous situation reconnaissance and intervention group, operate day and night in the calanques national park. This is one of the most beautiful of France’s nature parks. But this paradise can sometimes turn into a nightmare. The Pointe Rouge team attends one emergency for a tourist who’s lost consciousness on a totally inaccessible beach.

August 12 2016, a 50’ schooner runs onto a rock in the Frioul archipelago, several miles off the Marseille shores. The Pointe Rouge rescue services do all they can to prevent the ship from sinking… All passengers are taken off in time and the rescuers do all they can to run the boat onto the nearest beach, but the breach is too big…

The firefighters are in the front line to cap broken gas lines. This sort of intervention can quickly turn to tragedy. In summer, the Marseille calanques park is a trap. The GRIMP is on constant alert. Lots of tourists get trapped in the maze of rocks and put themselves in danger once they move off the beaten tracks. Divers from the specialist Operations Section, SOS Aqua, are regularly called out to emergencies at the old port. These interventions take place in one of the oldest sites of this ancient city. The rescuers often find themselves faced with archeological, and sometimes dangerous, adventures.

A fire is reported in an apartment with open windows and with balconies. It only needs three minutes for the flames to produce toxic smoke, which, at high temperatures, burns the lungs before asphyxia. Every year, thousands of tourists set out to explore the Calanques, but in this tiny corner of the world, the least incident can take on unimaginable proportions.

Marseille is surrounded by hills that form the city’s “Green Lung”. In summer, drought gets the upper hand and hits record highs. A small brush fire can very quickly develop into a giant city fire and then into a forest fire. The marine firefighters also have to deal with many cases of jellyfish stings. But more extreme cases may be lurking.

The brigade’s divers take high risks to prevent an old schooner that sank the day before from polluting the flora and fauna of the crystal waters. For these firefighters regularly find themselves confronted with situations of social despair, or of loneliness and insanity. Faced with psychologically challenging situations, the firefighters develop a humanity

On August 10 2016, a fire of an exceptional scale is heading straight for Marseille. Driven by a strong 65mph wind the fire is spreading fastly. The increasing number of seats of fire makes it uncontrollable. The fire rages towards the northern neighborhoods of Marseille. To protect the city’s residents, 1300 sappers and firefighters engage in a merciless battle…

The CETIS is a training center, equipped with simulators that can recreate the real conditions of certain types of fire. Today a group of firefighters will discover a pool called “ Helicopter Crash Simulator”. The brigade try to save a car driver who had a heart attack and ran into a wall. A young girl has gone through the hatch of a light shaft and fallen several meters.

On July 15, an arsonist sets various locations alight on the “Blue Coast”. The Canadairs are deployed, as the fires encircle a small town. Residents try to escape by the road or by the beach. The firefighters coordinate rescue and evacuation operations for the people trapped by the fire.