15-year-old charged after Mérignac fire killed two firefighters near Bordeaux

The fire and the deaths

On 21 July 2026, two professional firefighters, Wilfried Schmitter and Anthony Berthôme, both 34 years old and adjudants from the Saint-Médard-en-Jalles fire station, responded to a fire in a pine forest parcel near Bordeaux-Mérignac airport. The alert was given in the early afternoon and a large response was immediately deployed. Their intervention truck became trapped in the flames, and both men died at the scene. The fire burned 26 hectares of vegetation before being brought under control. Marc Vermeulen, director of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of Gironde, said the truck had been "trapped" in the burning pine parcel.

Arrests and charges

On Wednesday 12 August, police arrested two brothers, aged 15 and 22, at a traveler camp in Bordeaux. They were identified partly through CCTV footage. The family, itinerant between Spain and France, had been in the airport area for a few days. According to SudOuest, the two had gone by car to relieve themselves in nature and were smoking. The older brother crushed his cigarette butt on a parking lot, but the 15-year-old threw his into the grass, which immediately caught fire. Both were held in custody for 48 hours and reportedly acknowledged the facts.

During questioning, the 15-year-old exonerated his older brother, who was released. The minor was referred to the juvenile prosecutor's office on Thursday 13 August and charged with degradation by fire causing death through a manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of prudence or safety. He was placed in a closed educational center.

Investigation

The judicial investigation was opened to determine the origin of the deadly fire. It was assigned to a very substantial number of investigators from organized and specialized crime units, with support from the territorial crime division and five forensic police officers. About thirty police officers combed the terrain in the aftermath of the fire.

The search for the precise point of origin is one of the priorities.

Honors and union anger

Wilfried Schmitter and Anthony Berthôme were posthumously cited to the Order of the Nation, a recognition title created in 1917 to reward services or acts of exceptional devotion accomplished for France at the peril of one's life, in a civil or military capacity. The citation, for their "total commitment," was made by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on the proposal of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who visited a Bordeaux fire station the day after the deaths to meet the families. Their deaths, along with that of a 22-year-old volunteer firefighter who died fighting a fire in Savoie two weeks earlier, fueled anger among firefighter unions denouncing insufficient resources.

On Thursday 13 August, the nine representative Sdis unions met with Laurent Nuñez for nearly two hours. They emerged "very disappointed" by his promises and called for a national mobilization in September.

Broader fire context

A day after the two firefighters died, large forest fires broke out in Gironde, destroying more than 40,000 hectares. France in 2026 has already set a record for burned surface area in 20 years of satellite measurement, with nearly 100,000 hectares burned according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).