I am part of an action-research group, as an associated artist-researcher, led by the Bureau des Guides of the GR2013 and supported by the Fondation de France for the next two years in Marseille. The project is a Fire School, in response to the wildfires of July 8, 2025.

July 8, 2025 will remain etched in people’s memories for a long time. On that day, a devastating wildfire swept across 750 hectares between Les Pennes-Mirabeau and Marseille, particularly affecting the neighborhood of l’Estaque. Within a few hours, the flames destroyed houses, gardens, and entire hillsides. More than 6,000 homes were threatened, and 90 were destroyed or damaged. The trauma was immense: for those who lost their homes, of course, but also for all the residents of Marseille who saw fire enter their city.

On the same day, another area was affected: in the Sainte-Marthe neighborhood (14th district), the Bureau des Guides saw the land of Maison Lull burn—where it had been developing an outdoor educational project—forcing us to place the question of fire at the center of our work.

From this shock emerged a mobilization of residents affected by the fire. The collective formed after the July 8 fire organized working groups around the main concerns of those impacted: documenting the fire, demanding accountability from the Prefecture, and organizing life afterward (insurance, reconstruction and urban planning, and administrative support).

Alongside this initial organization that followed the event, another need appeared: to better understand fire—its ecology, its impact, its role for soils, fauna and flora, and the vulnerability of our edge-of-city neighborhoods. Rather than waiting only for answers from above, the aim is to learn together how to live in fire-prone territories.


A collective and civic approach
For more than ten years, the Bureau des Guides of the GR2013 has organized walks, collective investigations, and artistic and ecological projects across the territory. Its method is to bring together residents, experts, artists, and researchers to observe, understand, and act together.

In the days following the fire, the Bureau des Guides and the local cooperative Hôtel du Nord proposed taking a step aside: opening a collective conversation about fire. This is how The Fire School was launched—an action-research project led by the Bureau des Guides of the GR2013 together with residents, researchers, artists, and associations.

Toward a Fire School
What do we really know about fire? How can we explain it, understand it, anticipate it? And what collective actions could reduce our vulnerability?

While fire is inherent to the Mediterranean biome, and while most projections agree that the risk will increase in the coming years—some researchers even speaking of our entry into the “Pyrocene”—we realize that we actually know very little about this phenomenon.

Alongside resident groups, we have gathered researchers Elise Boutié (anthropologist), Jordan Szcrupak (landscape designer), Garance Maurer (artist), and field specialists such as Patrick Jeannot (coordinator for forest fire prevention), among others who will join the process. The idea of a Fire School gradually emerged… and naturally, it will be a somewhat unruly one.

A Fire School to
Learn together: expand our scientific, botanical, technical, regulatory, and institutional knowledge.
Act together: cultivate conviviality through shared moments and strengthen our collective capacity to act through prevention and ecological restoration.
Transmit: transform this knowledge into a common good through open and inclusive collective learning methods and pedagogical tools for residents, children, and other territories.
Engage with fire: build the capacity to question public authorities on these issues and formulate recommendations.

We will walk through the burned territories of l’Estaque to exchange knowledge and observations among residents. The grounds of Maison Lull will become a place of observation and a meeting space for The Fire School.

My role within the Fire SchoolWithin The Fire School, I learn while contributing my own knowledge about controlled burns and traditional fire practices, gathered across Mediterranean-climate regions. I also support the school in collectively digesting and shaping the many forms of knowledge we are encountering: understanding, learning, remembering, sharing, transmitting. Each of these becoming stages and playful processes that this wandering school embraces.

For me, the project is also an opportunity to better understand the contemporary and historical ecosystem of fire management in southern France. Between observing contemporary burning practices (with prescribed burn units) and investigating past layers (gestures and the material culture of fire) I am exploring where our relationship with fire comes from.

Project in progress, in Marseille and its region: follow the latest activities of The Fire School here.