The MSM news tells us that the huge summer wildfire near Bordeaux is clear evidence of an unpreventable “climate catastrophe”. History proves otherwise.
The Landes forest near Bordeaux is entirely artificial. It is Europe’s largest man-made pine plantation, transforming existing wetlands, explicitly designed and meant to be actively managed by humans. After the second world war, a catastrophic wildfire tore through the region in August 1949, burning 52,000 hectares and killing 82 people. This was after years of wartime neglect followed by a historic, four-year drought that began in 1945.
Instead of blaming the weather, forestry and engineering lessons were learned and France launched the Défense des Forêts Contre les Incendies. For sixty years, the FDCI system of watchtowers, fire breaks and a strict clearing regime achieved the impossible: it contained 98% of all forest ignitions to under 5 hectares. Even during the record-breaking heatwaves and droughts in 1976 and 2003, active land management held the line.
The crisis returned only when Paris and Brussels bureaucrats abandoned what had been proven to work. To meet Eurozone spending targets, the French government gutted the National Forestry Office, slashing its workforce by a third. With fewer rangers, vital hands-on forest management ground to a halt. The grid of wide, cleared sand tracks and firebreaks that kept the Landes forest safe for decades was neglected, allowing highly flammable undergrowth to turn the forest floor into a tinderbox.
Worse still, traditional preventative and prescribed burning (le brûlage dirigé) was effectively criminalised. To meet strict EU air quality metrics, ministries cracked down on smoke emissions, while EU habitat directives transformed hazardous fuel loads into “protected biodiversity zones.” Instead of allowing low-intensity, controlled fires to safely clear the brush, bureaucracy let the fuel pile up.
On top of all of that, under the EU’s Water Framework Directive, France demolished over 4,500 historic river barriers and small dams. In doing so, they destroyed a vital network of small rural reservoirs. As a result, firefighters face fuel-stacked forests with little or no water available, forcing bowsers to drive miles to refill.
Blaming carbon emissions and a climate catastrophe is a political smokescreen bigger than the clouds hanging above Bordeaux. These convenient lies mask the evidence of history and monumental policy failures that are now costing lives and livelihoods. By remembering what worked in the past, not listening to today’s eco lunacy, the wildfire threat could be, and should have been, significantly reduced for a tiny fraction of the costs imposed by the Net Zero cult.
© Richard Puller 2026
