France’s fight against an intense wildfire season has taken a jarring turn: An 18-year-old volunteer firefighter is under formal investigation on suspicion of helping start one of the country’s biggest blazes this year. Prosecutors say he initially admitted to lighting twigs with a lighter and gasoline in the Fontainebleau forest, south of Paris, before withdrawing the confession, per the BBC. Local media reports that a second 18-year-old has also been placed under formal investigation, a step that can lead to charges and trial under French law.
The fire has scorched about 5,000 acres, forced roughly 1,000 people to evacuate, and partly shut a major north-south highway. About 10% of the forest—home to the UNESCO-listed Palace and Park of Fontainebleau—has burned, though there’ve been no deaths, President Emmanuel Macron said during a visit to the region on Thursday. The AP notes that the blaze is unusual for being so close to Paris; the forest is not even 50 miles from the nation’s capital.
Macron vowed there’d be no leniency for arsonists as France, which has logged nearly 11,000 fires this year, grapples with repeated heat waves in what scientists say is Europe’s rapidly warming climate, driving harsher summers and more severe wildfires, per the BBC. The French president notes that the fires in the Fontainebleu area specifically are among some of the worst his nation has seen since the end of World War II, per France 24.
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