Firefighters in the Aude department of southern France sent in fresh reinforcements to tackle the Puilaurens wildfire over the weekend of September 11 to 13, 2026, more than a week after the blaze had first been declared under control.
The Aude, part of the Occitanie region, stretches from the Mediterranean coast to the foothills of the Pyrenees and regularly experiences wildfires during its hot, dry summers, which are often fanned by strong regional winds.
The fire had scorched 225 hectares of vegetation in the Haute-Vallée de l'Aude, the upper valley of the Aude river, before it was declared contained on Tuesday, September 8, according to La Dépêche du Midi, a regional daily newspaper. Puilaurens lies in the Lapradelle-Puilaurens area of the department and is known locally for its medieval Château de Puilaurens, one of the fortified sites in the region often referred to as the Cathar castles.
In French firefighting terminology, declaring a fire fixed means it has stopped spreading, though it is not necessarily extinguished, so crews continue monitoring it and dousing hot spots until it is declared completely out.
Hot spots return over the weekend
Firefighters had to intervene again to deal with twenty hot spots on Friday, September 11, and a further ten hot spots on Saturday, September 12.
On Sunday, September 13, a reactivation of the fire required ground crews to be sent back in, backed up in the air by a Dash water bomber aircraft and the Morane helicopter. Water bombers such as the Dash and Canadair planes are part of France's civil protection aircraft fleet and are regularly deployed to tackle wildfires across the Mediterranean south of the country during the summer fire season.
The fire fortunately burned only a few hundred square metres on Sunday, according to the newspaper L'Indépendant. The Lapradelle-Puilaurens sector remains very difficult for fire crews to access because of its steep, wooded terrain.
Tramontane winds expected this week
Monitoring of the fire will continue in the coming days, particularly because the tramontane is forecast to blow again over the region during the week beginning September 14. The tramontane is a strong, cold, dry wind that regularly sweeps down from the Massif Central across the Aude and the wider Languedoc coastline, and it is well known locally for fanning and spreading wildfires once they break out.
A summer of wildfires in the Aude
Wildfires are a recurring hazard in the Mediterranean south of France each summer, when vegetation dries out under high temperatures and can be ignited by lightning, sparks or human activity.
More than 1,000 hectares of vegetation have burned in the Aude department this summer. The largest fire of the season destroyed about 900 hectares between the Aude and the neighbouring Hérault department in early July.
The Puilaurens blaze was the second largest of the summer, having consumed the 225 hectares in the Haute-Vallée. Two further fires each burned more than 100 hectares: one near Carcassonne in early August, and another at Montséret during the same month.
