The fire reached Saumos, in the French department of Gironde, on July 22, and left almost nothing standing. It was part of the most devastating fires the region has seen in fifty years: more than 40 thousand hectares reduced to ashes, thousands of people evacuated from their homes in the middle of the night.
But there is one image the fire could not touch. A stone statue of Christ remained standing, with its face intact, while the wooden cross supporting it burned completely behind it. Photographer Fabien Cottereau documented the scene, and the photograph ended up going around the world.
Today, as 84 thousand people begin returning to their homes in Gironde and the fire continues advancing in Portugal and Greece, that image has become a point of reference for those seeking to explain the unexplainable: why some things endure when everything else disappears.
