u/Annanascomosus

These photos were taken this morning in the Diplodocus sector, while walking through the burned forest with the ONF and Vertige Média.

Nothing really prepares you for what you see.

For hundreds of meters, the forest has become a landscape of blackened trunks, scorched ground and silence. Many of these areas will remain closed for at least a year so the ONF teams can secure it.

Some of the boulders that mean the most to me were spared.
Thanks to the rocky chaos, where vegetation is naturally sparser, the fire lost intensity and several iconic climbing sectors survived.

Seeing those familiar rocks still standing brought relief.

But that feeling was quickly overshadowed by the scale of what had been lost around them.

Walking through this landscape made me realize something I've felt for a long time.
I've never really come to Fontainebleau just to climb.
The forest is not the backdrop to our sport.
It is the reason our sport exists here at all.

Every boulder draws its meaning from the pines that surround it, the shifting light through the canopy, the sand beneath our feet, the birds, the silence, and the history carried by these woods long before climbers arrived.
Without the forest, the rock is no longer quite the same.

Perhaps this tragedy is reminding us of something we were beginning to forget.
We are not here to consume this place.
We are invited into it.
And when you feel like a guest rather than an owner, your way of moving through a landscape changes.
You leave less behind. You pay more attention. You become grateful.

I hope that when these areas reopen, we return not only with our climbing shoes and chalk bags, but with a deeper awareness of what makes Fontainebleau so extraordinary.
Not just the boulders.
The living forest that shaped climbing history—and continues to shape all of us.

Maybe this is also an invitation to become a little more human: to slow down, to observe, to reconnect with the living world instead of simply passing through it. Because protecting nature doesn't begin with grand gestures. It begins with the way we choose to inhabit it, together.

Share the passion. Care for the place.

The fires in Fontainebleau have for now been contained, this does NOT mean it is safe now. The fire can still propagate underground for days and it could reignite at any moment.

The entire forest is CLOSED. ALL SECTORS.
NO climbing, NO walking, NO access at all.
Nobody cares how far you travelled to climb in Font. Closed means closed. There were still people climbing yesterday, how stupid can you be?

Let the authorities do their work and don’t put yourself at risk.
The closure is for now until next Monday and may be extended.

Respect the place and the people that are putting their life at risk to contain the fires.

In the meantime several people have been for now arrested under the suspicion to have voluntarily started the fires. One is a 18 years old volunteer firefighter.
What the heck is in people’s brain.

Article in French because the most complete news are obviously in French.

Fontainebleau Fires TF1