More than 5,000 people, stranded in the mountain villages of Planay and Pralognan-la-Vanoise in Savoie due to a fire, should be resupplied by air on Friday, according to the prefect of the department.
The road which serves these two towns located at an altitude of 1,400 meters was cut on Tuesday due to a fire which “generates instability of the rock wall” and “a large number of falling rocks of varying sizes”, explained Vanina Nicoli during a press point.
The disaster claimed the life of a 22-year-old volunteer firefighter on Wednesday, who was swept away by a rock. Thursday evening, it was “stabilized” with around 60 hectares covered, according to the prefect. But “several days of work will be necessary” to secure the road which “will obviously not be reopened by this weekend,” she added.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 people therefore find themselves, according to her, stranded in the village of Planay and the ski resort of Pralognan, which have 450 and 700 residents year-round but attract many tourists at the end of the Tarentaise valley. Their “isolation concerns us”, underlined Vanina Nicoli, whose services have mobilized accommodation providers so that they keep their clients under their roofs, while opening additional accommodation places.
Emergency air refueling
Thanks to a helicopter, a doctor and six firefighters were deployed to Pralognan, essential medicines delivered, and two people needing hospital care were evacuated. On the supply side, contacts were made with the two mini markets and the local restaurateurs to assess food needs, and “the objective would be to be able to make a first rotation” by air on Friday, according to the prefect.
The public authorities have also asked accommodation providers to contact tourists expected in the coming days to “invite them to cancel or postpone their stay,” said the mayor of Pralognan, Martine Blanc. “We do not want to find ourselves faced with a complicated situation, having to manage flows of people who arrive, where we would not be able to welcome them,” she explained.
Those who find themselves stuck on site will benefit from “community support”. On the other hand, “cancellations for the coming week will be the responsibility of accommodation providers and tourists”, she added, predicting that the town would be “impacted at all levels”.
“People are understanding”, especially given the “drama that occurred” with the death of the young firefighter, underlines the director of the tourist office, Silvère Bonnet. The fire, whose smoke affects the village, is “impactful: however, tourists are expected once the access road is secure and it will be,” he stressed.
For Martine Blanc, “evolution and climate change mean that today, even in the mountains, we are still located on the front line: there are glaciers, but there is also drought”, which means that “we find ourselves with situations that we did not know before”.
