On July 15th I arrived at Pointe du Cap Ferret, near Benoit Bartherot, for a book conference on his dam against the Atlantic Ocean. The gray smoke opposite to Pilate, on the other side of the basin, had given the air of military defeat to the landscape for two days. Two plumes rose, one behind the sand mountain in the forest of La Teste-de-Buch, the other further south, as if two fighter planes had crashed. As night fell, the dunes were red with fire.
It was not a sunset, but a curtain of flames. The sand dune had turned into a volcanic eruption. The whole night the sky was red like twilight. This dance vision was reminiscent of Pompeii, where campers acted as future frescoes. The next morning, the smoke was as black as the locomotive plumes of westerns. After hoping for a lull, the wind would swirl, ignite the coal, and reignite the fire. We felt helpless, as if we were watching…
Source: Le Figaro
