Here is yet another case that casts a shadow over the fire service as a whole. A volunteer firefighter from the Bouzigues fire station (Hérault), aged 27, and a 29-year-old accomplice, suspected of deliberately starting around twenty wildfires around Sète, have been charged with the alleged offences of “the wilful destruction, damage or deterioration, by means of arson, of forests, woodlands, moorland or scrubland, with the aggravating circumstance that this is carried out in such a way as to expose people to bodily harm or to cause irreversible damage to the environment”, as reported by our colleagues at Metro.
They confessed to the offences whilst in police custody, which began on Tuesday morning, said Christophe Barret, the public prosecutor for Montpellier, whose applications for remand orders were granted in full on Thursday evening by the judge responsible for liberty and detention, the JLD, at the Montpellier Regional Court. The two suspects were remanded in custody at around 10 pm.
The investigation has only just begun. Officers from the Pézenas police station are, acting on a judge’s warrant, set to verify all the statements made whilst in police custody by the two suspects, who were notably incriminated by the presence of a vehicle belonging to them, which was spotted at the sites of wildfires in the garrigue and undergrowth last spring.
The firefighter is to be struck off the register
On Thursday evening, the Hérault Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS 34) revealed that, "lThe firefighter in question is currently suspended, and the service is set to initiate proceedings to strike him off the register in light of the intolerable and unacceptable acts committed by this officer. In the height of the summer season, whilst staff at the Hérault Departmental Fire Service are fully mobilised across all fire stations in the department, at the departmental emergency call centre and within the various services to respond to the various calls for assistance and to ensure that emergency resources are deployed as effectively as possible, all staff condemn such behaviour in the strongest possible terms and place their trust in the judicial system to ensure that the punishment is commensurate with the offences committed and that the honour of thebe restored in the face of the discredit caused by this personal behaviour, which is incompatible with the performance of our duties of rescue, assistance and firefighting’.