In depth: the Gros Bessillon fire and what it means for a Provence trip
Why did a fire that was already out come back?
It was never quite out. The fire began at Pontevès on 21 July and ran through the Gros Bessillon hills for over a week before the préfecture declared it contained on the evening of 28 July. Contained means the perimeter has stopped growing, not that the ground inside it is cold. In Provençal garrigue and old pine, heat sits in roots and leaf litter for days.
Then the mistral arrived. It is a dry northerly that funnels down the Rhône valley and fans east across the Var, and it can turn a smouldering stump into a running fire in minutes. That is what happened on Friday 31 July, west of Correns. The préfecture ordered evacuations that evening across Correns, Montfort-sur-Argens, Le Val, Carcès and Châteauvert, pushed by FR-Alert to every phone in the affected cells, and a campsite near Correns was cleared alongside residential streets.
Reignition after containment is normal in a hot, wind-exposed massif. Do not read "under control" in a headline as "holiday back to normal".
Which villages and roads were actually cut?
This is wine and farming country, not a resort strip, so the disruption is about reaching places rather than places being destroyed. The reignition hit Correns, Montfort-sur-Argens, Le Val, Carcès and Châteauvert. Cotignac, Barjols and Brue-Auriac were caught in the earlier phase of the same fire in late July.
On the roads: the RD45 between Châteauvert and Correns closed, the RD22 between the RD13 and Montfort-sur-Argens went to emergency vehicles only, the RD13 from Cotignac was cut at the Les 4 Chemins junction on 1 August, and the RD562 between Carcès and Le Val closed. These are exactly the roads a satnav picks to cross the hills between the A8 and the Verdon, and it does not know they are shut.
The unwinding has been staged. The préfecture lifted the evacuation order for the northern neighbourhoods of Le Val, and Montfort-sur-Argens residents were allowed home on the evening of 1 August. In its 2 August morning bulletin it reopened the RD45 between Montfort-sur-Argens and Correns until 1pm so people could reach the village for supplies, and lifted shelter-in-place for the centre of Correns, while keeping preventive evacuation in force for other sectors of the commune. Some press that day still described Correns as cut off. The préfecture's bulletin describes limited, timed access rather than a sealed village, and that is the document to trust.
Are the Var forests open, and what happens if you walk in anyway?
Probably not, and this is what catches visitors who are nowhere near the fire.
The Var préfecture divides the department into nine forest massifs and grades each one daily. The grade decides whether you may enter, and it is published every evening for the following day on an access map. Green and yellow mean normal access, orange means restricted and discouraged, red means closed to the public outright, footpaths and forest tracks included.
On Saturday 1 August every massif in the Var was shut. On Sunday 2 August eight were still closed at red: Sainte-Baume, Haut-Var, Maures, Corniche des Maures, Centre-Var, Monts Toulonnais, Estérel and the Îles d'Hyères. Only Canjuers came down to orange, where access is not formally banned but is strongly discouraged.
Read that list again. The Maures and the Corniche des Maures sit behind the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. The Estérel is the red rock between Fréjus and Cannes. The Îles d'Hyères are Porquerolles and Port-Cros. None are near Correns. They closed because the whole department was hot, dry and windy. If your trip is built around walking, trail running or vineyard paths, plan for the countryside being legally shut on any given day, and check the map the night before rather than at the trailhead. Open fires and barbecues are banned near woodland, as is smoking on forest paths, and that is enforced.
You are booked into a gîte or campsite next week. Now what?
The coastal Var was not affected by this fire, and the A8 and A57 stayed open, though nine of their rest and service areas were shut as a precaution on 2 August. So if you are inland, ring the property and ask two questions, not one. Are you open. And: is the road to you open, by which route. The second gets missed, because a gîte can be undamaged and still unreachable if the RD45 or RD562 is shut. Owners in this valley know the road status before any website does.
If they are open and reachable, go. Provence Verte in August is vineyards, Thursday markets, river swimming at Correns and Carcès, and hill villages that are not on fire. Cancelling Cotignac because of a fire near Correns is like cancelling Bath because of something in Bristol.
If the property is evacuated or unreachable, you have firmer ground for a refund than most travellers realise: a préfectoral evacuation order is a documented act of authority, not an opinion. Ask for it in writing, with its date. To move rather than cancel, the Luberon gives you the same hilltop-village-and-vineyard trip untouched by this fire.
Wherever you stay, keep your phone charged. Evacuation orders here went out by FR-Alert, which reaches foreign handsets on French networks without you signing up for anything.
What does a burnt hillside mean for the rest of the year?
Access restrictions outlast the flames. Burnt woodland stays closed for weeks and sometimes months, because standing dead pines fall without warning and crews need clear ground to work hot spots. Marked paths, GR routes and walking apps show open long after the ground is legally closed. The signage on the ground is the authority.
The less obvious risk arrives with the rain. A burnt slope has lost the roots and litter that held water back, and Provence takes its rain in short violent autumn storms. Burn scars shed mud, ash and rock into the valleys, which here means onto the same departmental roads that closed for the fire. Expect intermittent closures around Correns, Montfort-sur-Argens and Châteauvert through the autumn on days with no fire at all.
The hills between Pontevès and Correns will be black, then grey, then green-brown for several years. If you are booking a walking holiday in this valley for 2027, better to know now than on arrival.